


The Hunt 4 - Severed

by R_rated26



Series: The Hunt Series [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Abuse, Abusive Relationships, Anger, Anger Management, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Biting, Bruises, Changing POV, Choking, Complicated Relationships, Control, Control Issues, Discussion of Abortion, Dom/sub, Dom/sub Play, Dom/sub Undertones, Dominance, Drama & Romance, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Roller Coaster, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Emotionally Repressed, Erotica, F/M, Face Slapping, Fantasy, Fingerfucking, Force Choking, Hair-pulling, Handcuffs, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, Impact Play, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Intense, Kissing, Lace Panties, Licking, Light Dom/sub, Loss of Control, Magic Fingers, Marking, Mental Battles, Name-Calling, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Orgasm Delay/Denial, POV Female Character, POV First Person, POV Male Character, Pet Names, Power Play, Pregnancy, Rape Fantasy, Rape Roleplay, Roleplay, Romance, Rough Kissing, Rough Sex, Scratching, Self-Hatred, Separation Anxiety, Sexual Frustration, Sexual Tension, Sexual Violence, Shower Sex, Spanking, Supernatural Elements, Unplanned Pregnancy, Unwanted Pregnancy, Vaginal Fingering, Vampire Hunters, Vampires, Verbal Humiliation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-01 20:10:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 28
Words: 49,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17874035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_rated26/pseuds/R_rated26
Summary: Valery has hunted vampires together with Jake and his father Bill for 6 years. 16 weeks ago Bill dies, and leave Val and Jake, both 28 years old now, alone in this dangerous world. Jake handles his grief badly, and the only one around to take it out on is Val. 9 weeks ago they engaged in a turbulent relationship that turns out to be the key for Jake to get better.Val has discovered she’s pregnant. And now they have to find out what to do. They disagree strongly in their feelings about this, which triggers Jakes temper more than Val can handle. His exploding temper forces her to stand her ground against him, but she doesn’t know how much she can take of this. Their disagreement creates a huge gulf between them that might disassemble them irrevocably.Right, when they thought they have worked it out, they’re basically back to the beginning of their abusive relationship. Maybe even worse this time…





	1. Chapter 1

“Jake?” 

He jumped up from the bed. My tone had warned him that something was wrong. “What is it?” His face and tone was concerned, but also curious. I held out the stick to show him. He took it with his right hand and looked at it for a long time with a deep frown on his face. Seemed like he had entered the same state of shock, I think I was still sort of in. 

“Y-you’re pregnant?” He stammered in a low voice. I could only answer with a nod. “What should we do?” He asked with uncertainty. 

It took a couple of seconds before my brain fired up and started to think rational again. “Get a doctor to confirm and schedule an abortion.” My voice was monotone, it was the natural choice and most rational thing to do. When I chose this life, I had accepted that kids, marriage, house, and white picket fence went down the drain and I had no problem with that. So this was just a problem with an easy solution, it just had to be done. 

“Shouldn’t we at least think about this before we rush into something?” He sounded like one who felt wronged but still in a calm voice. 

“What is there to think about?” I replied. I saw a look in his eyes, and I didn’t believe it at first. But as the seconds passed, his face remained the same. Optimism? Expectant? When I was just feeling annoyed by the fact that this problem, though it had an easy solution, wouldn’t be as easy done as it sounded, it slowed us. “You can’t be serious,” I whispered in an accusing tone. 

“We could at least talk about it.” He whispered in a low voice as he looked down at the stick. 

“Talk about it? There is nothing to talk about! We can’t bring a child into this world. Should I stay at the motel with the baby all day long while you’re out hunting? Or should we just go completely insane and go get a crappy apartment and start a college fund while we work at Wall-Mart?” He looked shameful when I listed the reasons why this was the fucking worst idea of our history. 

“Why can’t we at least talk about it? So we know we agree?” His voice was now begging. 

“There is nothing to talk about!” I repeated, but I was yelling now. He hid his face in his left palm, and I started to cool down. 

He removed his hand from his face that was markedly harder now and said in a firm voice, “Val, sit down so we can have a proper conversation about this.” And pointed at the white chair. There were no doubt he meant it. After around two seconds, he added, “Please,” as if in a prayer. Prayed for me to calmly sit down and talk, so he didn’t have to drag me to the chair and force me. 

After a moment of wavering, I sighed and sat down, crossed my arms, and looked awaiting at him. “So talk!” I hissed when he hadn’t spoken for a few seconds, he had sat down on the other chair across from me and placed the pregnancy test on the table. 

He sent me a warning glare before he asked, “How did this happen when you’re on the pill?”

I shrugged and flipped my arms out in an overdone gesture for ‘I don’t know,’ and said, “They’re not 100% effective.” 

He nodded with a frown like he couldn’t get the equation to fit, but then moved on to his next question, “How far along are you?” 

Again, I gestured, but this time, I spoke the words anyway, “I have no idea.”

“Why did you take a pregnancy test?” He asked calmly, but his jaw and shoulder pose showed that was far from the case. 

“Because I take one once a month! Why do you think? Because I didn’t get my period of course!” I spat at him. Why else should I take a test?

“There’s no reason to yell at me, I haven’t done this before!” Now his tone rose in volume, which was kind of ironical considering his words about me not yelling at him. 

“Neither have I, but I know how the female body works,” I muttered. Why were we talking about why I took the damn test? It didn’t matter, what mattered was what we had to do from now on. 

“Stop being so sassy and take this seriously!” He yelled, his flat hand hammered on the table, making the objects on it rattle. 

“I am taking this seriously!” I yelled back. 

“Then start acting like it!” He retorted. 

“Fine! Then I’m gonna find the number on the nearest doctor and get an appointment to schedule an abortion.” I had stood up, leaning over the table with my hands on the top of it. 

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it!” Now he got up too. 

“If you really took this seriously then you would already be calling.” I sneered in a low and icy tone. 

“Goddammit! Why’re you being like this? Why can’t we talk about it?” He held his hands out in a resigned gesture like he didn’t know what to do with me. His tone had a hint of the same resignation. 

“Because there’s nothing to talk about!” I yelled in an attempt to get him to understand what I was saying because I really felt like I had said that sentence many times already. His jaw clenched, I could see his temper was smoldering just below the surface as he sent me a glare I returned. “You know what? We’re not getting anywhere with this ‘talking.’” I said with a raised hand to stop him just as he opened his mouth before I headed for my boots. 

“Where’re you going?” He inquired surprised, but I could still hear that underlying tone of anger. 

“Taking a walk,” I stated calmly as I found the keys to the Chevy in his leather jacket. “Don’t worry, I’ll come back in a couple of hours,” I reassured when he started spluttering his protests. 

“Val, wait,” He followed me into the hall, the anger still smoldered in him, but most of all he just seemed confused right now.

“No, we need to cool off,” I explained and that seemed to make him stop protesting and following me. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” I promised once again.

 

I drove on 95 to the outskirt of the city and then followed 159 until I reached Calico Basin where I parked in the dirt of the road. It was under half an hour drive away from our hotel. Sitting down, I leaned against the side of the car. Everything here was arid and mostly brown, but there was some green too. Again, I looked down at my stomach, then placed a hand on it where the fetus was. 

No. Nothing. I felt nothing. It felt like there wasn’t anything there. Or maybe I just hadn’t got used to the thought yet. Then Jake’s question popped up in my head. _How far along are you?_ How far along was I? I wondered. For a long time, I just sat and pondered over that question. Then I wondered why Jake was so keen to the idea and why he didn’t just think abortion as a natural next step to this, but I didn’t find any answers to either of those questions. 

When my head wasn’t as filled with questions I couldn’t answer anyway, I got a little proud of using the ‘buffer–solution.’ I had thought about it when we had that fight the other night, but then I couldn’t get past him. I really hoped some time apart would clear his head and get his temper to cool down so we could talk properly about this and make a plan. If we went to a doctor here, then we would have to stay here until I have had the abortion. Good, it was Vegas of all places. People always carried way too much cash on them here. So at least the chances of running out of money were slim. 

I was going to have the abortion whether or not Jake supported it, he couldn’t do anything about it anyway as it was my body. Though I knew I had a hard time saying no to him with certain things, but this I had to say no to. I had to. I couldn’t let him push me over. But I suddenly couldn’t forget that expectant look he had sent me. It had really surprised me, as I had never imagined him being the type that wanted kids, just like me. We were two sides of the same coin. Our story was told, hunting vampires until we die of it. Having a relationship as a hunter was already more than you could ever expect to get. But babies? That was just wrong, immoral. I mean you couldn’t offer that kind of life to a child. A child needed a safe, stable home with a stable economy. Having a baby and being a hunter was just not compatible. Ever. 

I sighed, how did I get into this mess? 

_Well, young lady, first of all, you let him fuck you repeatedly, second of all, you screwed up your birth control. This is completely your own fault._

Yeah, I did and yeah it was, it hit me like a train when I realized I actually had screwed up my birth control lately, I had just forgotten all about it. But I had done that before and didn’t get pregnant because of that. 

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the side of the car, tried to think back and calculate when it happened. 

The first time, I screwed them up after we got involved was when I was bitten. I shuddered at the memory. Silently, I counted in my head, that was almost two months ago, I think, but we had that sex break and didn’t have sex until two weeks after or so.

The second time, I screwed up was at the hospital after Sinanima. That was almost a month ago, but then Jake was in the medically induced coma and crap, so I think almost two weeks went by before we had sex, though I wasn’t sure as I rarely kept track of days and dates, but I still had some sort of sense of time. 

So either I was a couple of weeks or five-six weeks pregnant. I doubt the pregnancy test could detect two weeks of pregnancy. That means I was probably five-six weeks pregnant. Once again, I looked down and put a hand on my lower abdomen. 

Nope, still nothing. I didn’t feel any warm or maternal feelings, it didn’t feel like there was anything there. Maybe the test could be wrong. I didn’t think my brain wanted to accept it before a doctor had confirmed it. 

For a while, I just absentmindedly played with some dry straws of grass, trying to get used to thinking ‘I’m pregnant’ in an attempt to try to comprehend it. At some point, I found my phone and googled ‘abortion.’ The first result was, of course, Wikipedia, but the second was from something called _Planned Parenthood_ , which sounded like the exact opposite of my situation, but I clicked the link anyway as the title was _Abortion information, what are your options?_

The page simply presented the options and that _only you can decide what’s best for you._

Well, Jake, you should listen to that. 

I clicked on a link to find one of their health centers, though I couldn’t remember the zip code, but I never could that, the only one I could remember was where my mom and I lived. 25312, Charleston. So I found the right zip code for where we were staying and typed it in. There was one close by luckily. 

I locked the screen on my phone, I would rather read the rest of the page on a computer. A phone screen was just too small to navigate and read that sort of thing properly and along with the big crack in my screen, it just made it even more difficult. Maybe it was time to get back.


	2. His side of things

“Jake?” Val said as she walked out of the bathroom. 

I jumped up from the bed, her tone alarmed me. Something was wrong, but my mind was wiped clean for any idea of what it could be. “What is it?” I asked concerned. 

She held out a white stick of some kind. At first, I couldn’t connect her tone and expression to this little piece of plastic. I took it and realized it was a pregnancy test. 

It was positive. 

Suddenly, a whole path opened up in my mind. Val holding a little girl with red hair, and hazel eyes, and big red cheeks in her arms. Her reading bedtime stories. Pushing her on the swing. Comforting her when she was crying. Holding her close and kissing her head. Me throwing her up in the air and catching her again while she whined of laughter. Me holding them both. 

I had never really given any thought to something like that before, and that fact took me by surprise. I lost my breath for a second over all those images appearing in my head by themselves. But it just happened, I had no control over it. But now I couldn’t unsee it. 

“Y-you’re pregnant?” I finally got stammered over my lips. She just nodded. “What should we do?” I asked in confusion, I didn’t really know how to handle this. 

“Get a doctor to confirm and schedule an abortion.” She just said matter-of-factly. 

What? The image of her holding a little, redheaded girl still lingered before my inner eye. Hold on a second, I’ve barely had time to even comprehend this. “Shouldn’t we at least think about this before we rush into something?”

“What is there to think about?” She snapped. Now her eyes were aimed directly at me where it up until now had seemed like she had tried to avoid it. 

I had no idea about what my face looked like, I was still too stunned to grasp the magnitude of this situation. 

But as she looked at me, her stubborn face slowly morphed into disbelief. “You can’t be serious.” Her tone was infused with the same amount of disbelieve her face was showing. 

“We could at least talk about it,” I mumbled, my eyes dropped from hers down to the stick I was still holding in my hands. 

Talk about it, so the extent of this can settle in me. Isn’t she as bewildered as I am?

“Talk about it?” She mocked, before she continued her tirade, “There is nothing to talk about! We can’t bring a child into this world. Should I stay at the motel with the baby all day long while you’re out hunting? Or should we just go completely insane and go get a crappy apartment and start a college fund while we work at Wall-Mart?” Her tone was close to yelling. 

I had to admit she got a point, but I still haven’t moved past this stick in my hand. It felt like she was ten steps ahead of me with this and I struggled to keep up with her. 

_Talk to her, make sure you’re on the same page._ I could clearly hear Tina’s voice. 

“Why can’t we at least talk about it? So we know we agree?” I pleaded in a low voice as I tried to slow things down, so I had a chance of catching up with her. 

“There is nothing to talk about!” She shouted back at me. 

I let my hand cover my eyes in an attempt to think clearly. Why’s she so fucking stubborn? What’s wrong with talking about it and make sure we’re on the same page? What can it hurt? 

I could feel how she was starting to piss me off, perhaps I was starting to get past the shock of the positive pregnancy test.

Okay, if she wasn’t gonna listen to reason I have to make her. I removed my hand from my face, “Val, sit down so we can have a proper conversation about this.”

This is how it’s supposed to be done – by talking to each other. We’re two in this. She stared back at me with a defiant look, her eyes flickered from the chair I was pointing at and me. 

“Please,” I pushed out between my teeth. 

This is happening whether you like it or not. I’m as much a part of this as you are, missy. 

I saw the surrender in her shoulders, and to my relief, she sat down, but her eyes hadn’t lost an ounce of that defiant look that just got amplified by her crossing her arms. “So talk!” She spat. 

I felt like saying something like ‘shut up, just for a second’ or ‘stop being so belligerent and cooperate.’ 

But instead, I just sent her a glare, hoping she could interpret my look. I sucked in a deep breath to calm down and asked the first and most logic question that came to my mind, “How did this happen when you’re on the pill?”

She made an overly provocative I-don’t-know-gesture as she said, “They’re not 100% effective.”

Aha. But they’re still like 99.9% effective, I think, so how – you know what? It doesn’t matter. The damage is already done. So I moved on to the next legitimate question. “How far along are you?” 

“I have no idea.” She said as she made almost the same I-don’t-know-gesture.

“Why did you take a pregnancy test?” 

What tipped her off? When did she notice something was not right? Why didn’t she tell me anything, like ‘hey, I think I might be pregnant, so I’m gonna take a test.’ It would at least be nice to have had a warning instead of an ambush with a positive pregnancy test. 

“Because I take one once a month! Why do you think? Because I didn’t get my period of course!” She hissed back. 

Wow, easy! 

“There’s no reason to yell at me, I haven’t done this before!” I couldn’t control my voice as I felt the powerlessness-demon gain strength. It’s not the first time she’s provoked it. 

“Neither have I, but I know how the female body works.” She mumbled under her breath. 

“Stop being so sassy and take this seriously!” I slammed my hand on the tabletop, I was getting tired of her attitude. 

“I am taking this seriously!” She shouted. 

“Then start acting like it!” I shot back at her. 

She almost knocked over the chair when she stood up, “Fine! Then I’m gonna find the number on the nearest doctor and get an appointment to schedule an abortion.” She yelled, leaning over me. Her hands supported her weight on the table. 

I got up too to be at the same level as her. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it!” My voice had a definitive tone. Stop being like this and talk properly to me. 

“If you really took this seriously then you would already be calling.” Her tone was suddenly low and cold. 

“Goddammit! Why’re you being like this? Why can’t we talk about it?” My tone got a desperate hint, I didn’t know if she could hear it, but I couldn’t hold it in anymore. The powerlessness-demon sneaked its grip around me, its long fingers got a deeper and deeper hold on me the more she wouldn’t listen to me, and I didn’t know how to get her to listen.

“Because there’s nothing to talk about!” She yelled and pronounced every syllable clearly like I was mentally disabled or something like that. 

Yeah, I know, that’s what you think because you’ve said it so many fucking times, but why are we still talking if there really isn’t anything to talk about? There’s a shitload to talk about! Why’s she so fucking stubborn!? And apparently deaf too!

I had just opened my mouth to give her a retort when she held her hand up to stop me and said, “You know what? We’re not getting anywhere with this ‘talking.’” And walked away from the table. 

“Where’re you going?” I asked perplexed when she started to put on her boots. 

Why’s she leaving? And where to?

“Taking a walk.” She said tonelessly as she fumbled around in the pocket of my jacket and drew out the keys. “Don’t worry, I’ll come back in a couple of hours.” She added and interrupted the different stuttering words that left my mouth because I didn’t know what question to ask first. 

Why’re you going? Where’re you going? Why can’t we talk about this? Why do you need to go? Because you need air or what the hell is going on? 

“Val, wait,” I called as I prohibited her from closing the door after her, but she just continued walking down the hall where I followed her. 

“No, we need to cool off.” She turned around and said calmly with both hands raised to stop me. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” She added before she turned around and left me alone in the hall. 

What the hell just happened? I struggled to follow her train of thoughts. Slowly, I walked back to the room and closed the door behind me. 

Okay, I gotta rewind this to keep up. I felt like this situation was completely out of control and I struggled to follow it, which only fueled the complete powerlessness I was feeling. It threatened to strangle me.

First of all, Val’s pregnant. _Pregnant_. I tried to wrap my mind around it. She’s carrying my baby, _our_ baby. I never thought this would overcome me. I’ve always been careful and worn a condom. You never know what people have or don’t have. And because I didn’t want kids, or that’s what I thought until Val showed me that positive pregnancy test. The images still lingered before my inner eye. Like they were now burned into my head, and I couldn’t get rid of them even though I wanted to. 

Besides Val, I’ve only done it without a condom with Nicole after some time because she also made sure the guy always wore one, and she was on birth control too, but nothing ever happened. But with Val, it was like it didn’t even occur to me because she was just Val. I knew her so well. But now she was pregnant. I still couldn’t believe it, it felt surreal. 

Second of all, I was still confused over our conversation, or should I say fight. I tried to replay it all in my head. The whole conversation just felt like running your head into a wall, and that wall was Val’s words, _there’s nothing to talk about._

But there was a lot to talk about. 

Third of all, she took me completely by surprise when she almost stormed out of the room with the car keys in her hand. 

_We need to cool off._

No, you need to shut up and listen, and then talk to me like a civilized human being. I was really glad I had Tina’s advice to fall back on. But Val didn’t seem to agree. 

Now where I’ve rewound and went through the latest events step by step, I didn’t feel calmer, and the powerlessness-demon hadn’t released its grip on me. It made me feel restless, a lot alike how I feel after the nightmares. Val made me feel deeply confused. And this whole situation, her being pregnant, our fight, and the fact that she just left like that made me feel strangely empty, and I couldn’t explain why. 

Where was she? Why did she feel the need to run away like that? 

Because somehow you scared her away, the demon whispered. It wouldn’t be the first time. I could feel the gray monster awakening, ready to support that statement. 

When would she come back?

A couple of hours, she said, she’ll be back in a couple of hours. I tried to calm myself and the storm that was starting to manifest inside me, but it seemed like the restlessness had taken root in me and only grew and grew until it felt unbearable and I couldn’t sit still with either my hands or legs. 

Maybe I should go for a run? I quickly thought. 

I dragged my shorts and running shoes out from under the bed. After changing, I found a random playlist on my phone, plugged in the earphones, and headed out the door. 

God, this heat! Soon my t-shirt had dark splotches caused by sweat. I could feel the fabric sticking to my back and one drop after another running down my temples. 

It wasn’t long until the tightness in my chest started, and when I had only run half of what I usually did, it became so intolerable I had to stop and sit down with my arms around my chest for support. Two people even came over and asked if I was okay. I guess I probably looked like I was having a heart attack, it actually felt that way too, but I explained breathlessly that I had a couple of broken ribs and had tried too much too soon. 

God, this is starting to bother me, the physical limitation. Though it slowly got better, it was things like these that reminded me I wasn’t completely recovered yet. It pissed me off and made me impatient. 

Twenty minutes later, it had subsided enough for me to stand up straight and walk back to the hotel. I threw off my clothes and took a cold shower. At least the temporary pain on my run had pushed the confusing thoughts, demons, and monsters aside for just a bit. But as I cooled down, I felt how they sneaked their way back into my consciousness again. 

The powerlessness-demon, which the gray monster backed up. They had somehow agreed that I was the one that had driven Val out of the hotel room. Which made the guilt slowly rise in me, even though I didn’t know exactly how I had made Val run off. Maybe she needed her ‘air.’ I scoffed. 

Then the one named missing dad appeared. I bet he would have some sort of solution or plan of action figured out pretty soon and could talk some sense into her. Like he had done when we first met, where all me and Val did the first fifteen minutes after we encountered each other, was fight – physically, yell, and talk past each other. 

But dad wasn’t here, and we had to figure this out on our own. If she would just calm down and talk to me, instead of throwing a hissy fit. 

A memory darkened my mind. 

Her angry eyes, and yelling, and pushing me after I told her that causing her pain takes away mine… that was a hissy fit. This was just her being so goddamn stubborn instead of listening and relate to my side of things too. 

I got out of the shower and dressed, but then the restlessness crept in on me again. When would she be back? What would happen when she does? What kind of mood would she be in? Would she yell some more? 

Okay, I had to distract myself from all of this. This situation, the worry about Val, and when she would come back, and then the building up of everything inside me…   
I remembered the Harry Potter book I borrowed from her. It has been some time since I last read it. It hadn’t really caught me, but Val seemed to like the books. Well, I have nothing better to do, and it was a better distraction than the TV.


	3. Chapter 3

“Hi,” I tried as I slowly opened the door to our room. 

Jake looked surprised up at me, he was lying on the bed. He looked like he wanted to say something, but then he clenched his jaw as his eyes dropped from mine and to the book he was reading, “Hi,” he said lowly instead. 

I kept standing in the middle of the room for a few moments trying to think of something to say, but I couldn’t come up with anything, so I sat down in front of the laptop and turned it on. When it had hissed to life, I found that Planned Parenthood site again and started to read about abortion pill and in-clinic abortion. 

Abortion pill could be given up to seventy days, which is equal to ten weeks after the first day of a woman’s last period. 

Again, I tried calculating, God, I have calculated a lot today, more than I ever had since high school. But the first time we were together my period had ended just a couple of days before that, so from the first day of my last period it had been around seventy-five days. 

Okay, so in-clinic abortion for me. 

“What’re you doing?” Jake asked quietly when I was halfway through reading about the in-clinic abortion. 

“Reading about abortion,” I stated, trying to make my tone as neutral as possible.


	4. His side of things

My eyes flew up as I heard the door open. 

“Hi,” She said quietly when our gazes met. 

I got relieved by the fact that she was back, but only for a moment. A snappy comment popped up in my mind. ‘Are you ready to talk about things like a grown up now or are you gonna follow in Hitler’s footsteps and just dictate what should and shouldn’t be talked about?’ Immediately, I felt bad about just thinking it and my eyes shied away from hers, glad I had stopped the words before they left my mouth. Alternatively, I simply said, “Hi.”

She continued to stand between the bed and the door for a couple of seconds while she scratched her neck but then sat down on the chair with the laptop in front of her. 

My eyes stared at her back. Well, at least no yelling, but she seemed… abashed? Maybe because she yelled like that, or left the way she did. I wanted to say something, get the conversation going, but I couldn’t find any words besides ‘what’re you doing?’ But that just sounded stupid and unoriginal. When five minutes had passed and I still hadn’t come up with anything better, I asked her anyway. 

“Reading about abortion.” She informed in a toneless voice. 

“Figures,” Of course she’s reading about abortion. It seemed like it couldn’t go fast enough for her. 

Okay, maybe I should just go straight to the case and get it over with. Nervously, I opened my mouth, “Val, can I talk to you about this?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” She shrugged. She was starting to sound like a broken record.

“Yes, there is.” Whether you like it or not. I had put the book aside. 

“Jake,” She turned around on the chair and put her hands together like she was about to beg me. “We can’t have a baby, not with this life.”

“But–”

“No.” She interrupted firmly. “I know you didn’t choose this life in the same way I did. You got dragged into it, and I made the decision by myself and was old enough to understand the consequences and sacrifices it brought with it. You were forced into it by your dad. And I can understand that this seems… tempting, but we have to be realistic.” She explained calmly, but urgently. 

“Isn’t it realistic to consider different options?” Or just my feelings or opinion at least? And then make the decision together. 

“Yeah, options like medical or surgical abortion.” Her tone rose slightly in volume, and her tone got a hard edge. 

“That’s not what I meant!” I didn’t even notice I raised my tone over hers, but the black monster was lurking at the edges, just waiting for the right thing to ignite it. 

“Jake, no!” She insisted harshly. 

“We are two in this!” Goddammit, would you shut up for a moment and just listen to what the fuck I’m saying!? 

“It’s my body!” She shouted back and stomped on the floor with her foot as she stood up. 

That was an unfair card to throw! Why won’t you listen? Why do you twist or misunderstand every word I say? Sure, it’s your body, but you carry something from me in there too! We’re two in this. This is as much my baby as it is yours! 

I couldn’t give her a retort that wouldn’t make it sound like I was undermining her right to decide over her own body. 

I had to get away from her before I said something really stupid and made this mess even worse. But I wasn’t gonna run away like she had done. Instead, I walked to the bathroom, I hadn’t even noticed when I had stood up, and slammed the door after me. I let my hands run through my hair in an attempt to calm myself down. I could feel the deep claws of the black monster tearing in me, and I didn’t want to take it out on Val even though she’s so infuriating it could set hell on fire. 

I turned on the water, but instead of undressing, I sat down on the closed toilet seat with my head in my hands. I had already taken a shower today, but I just had to get out of the room, but now she would just think I’m taking a shower and don’t ask any questions on why I’m hiding in the bathroom for half an hour. 

With everything in me, I tried to get the black monster to retreat. I didn’t want to fight with her, and if it got the upper hand, I would definitely say or do something that would hurt her, and I would regret it. All I want is to talk about this and decide together, not her dictating without taking me into consideration. We’re in a relationship, we should do a thing like this together. 

The image of Val holding a little redheaded, hazel-eyed girl popped up in my head again and a warm longing sensation spread in my body. I haven’t felt like this before. When I see kids on the street or have to talk to them, I don’t feel anything, at all. They’re just little people running around whom I have no attachment or interest in. But this image… I sighed. I think I was starting to grasp that Val’s pregnant. Pregnant with my baby. And she’s talking about terminating the pregnancy. Normally, I have nothing against abortions, I think it’s a woman’s right to get an abortion if she doesn’t want the child or because of other reasons. But this… this is me and Val’s baby, and she’s talking about… the first word that comes to my mind was ‘killing,’ but it sounded so melodramatic. But she wants to remove the life of our baby. 

I don’t know how I feel about this. 

On one hand, I can follow Val, this isn’t a life for a baby, and we still have to find Sinanima… the demon named finding Sinanima started to draw attention to itself just by the thought of her. But on the other hand, this could be something fantastic. If it just had happened a little later. Happened after we had killed Sinanima. 

I really had a hard time figuring out how I felt about this, or perhaps it was more like what I was supposed to feel. I really had conflicting emotions about this. If we could just stay in our own little bubble, this could happen, but we aren’t. Deep down I know the time and place are wrong, but I hate the thought of killing _our_ baby. _My baby_. 

I don’t know for how long I sat there with all these thoughts and emotions swirling inside of me, but at least the black monster was in control, the powerlessness demon was a whole other story. 

I undressed, wetted my hands under the showerhead, and let them run through my hair, so Val wouldn’t suspect a thing before I turned it off. As I walked out of the bathroom, I looked at the clock, it was almost time to go so I could just as well put the suit on. Val began changing too. I didn’t know what to say to her, and I was afraid that if I said anything, it would end in a fight again.


	5. Chapter 5

“It’s my body!” I stood up too and yelled back at him. 

He clenched his jaw, it was clear he wanted to say something by the way his lips silently formed the beginning of different words, but he held his tongue. Making an annoyed gesture with his hand that had just pointed at me, he disappeared into the bathroom and slammed the door, but not before sending me a burning glare. 

I knew it was a low card to draw, but it was the truth. When I first saw that positive pregnancy test, I now realized I had no idea that he would react this way. I thought he would be reasonable. Never had I heard him talk about kids or anything in that category. Actually, I had been pretty sure that he didn’t want kids, that we were on the same side, but clearly, we weren’t. I didn’t know what kind of fantasy world he thought we were in, but we couldn’t. It was a fairy tale and nothing more than that, we had to be realistic about this. It was an accident, and it should never have happened. 

Shaking my head, I sat down in front of the laptop again and continued reading, I heard the water started to run in the bathroom. 

After his shower, it most of all felt like he ignored me. And when he finally looked at me, it was with a glare. Jake put on his suit when he came out from the bathroom, it was almost time for us to go to work. I began changing too and applied the same makeup as the other days. 

 

That night I had to say ‘no, thank you’ to alcohol. Even though I would get an abortion, I still felt bad drinking now that I knew. Which was ridiculous as I had drunk, God knows how much alcohol already, but then I didn’t know. Now I did, and it changed everything. 

When I politely refused alcoholic drinks, I held a hand to my stomach with a smile, but I got a really bad taste in my mouth every time I said it and my smile couldn’t be faker, it nearly hurt my facial muscles at the end of the evening. It was the most obvious reason for refusing alcohol, but it was also true. The one thing that bothered me was all the following questions. _How far along are you? Is it a boy or a girl? What are you gonna name it?_ At the end of the evening, I mostly felt like yelling _it’s none of your damn business!_ But politely answered, “Only a few weeks,”, “I don’t know,” and, “I don’t know as I don’t know the gender yet.” 

I did everything I could to avoid looking at Jake, and the few times I accidentally did, he looked back at me with the same glare as earlier. At some point, I just had to get out of there, but I had to ask Jake for the key. With a deep breath, I got back into the bar, walked straight up to him and asked for the keys in what I hoped what a neutral tone. He gave them to me without a word, but his eyes said it all, he was beyond displeased with me, at the moment. Well, too bad it wasn’t him that was pregnant, then he could do whatever he wants, I childishly thought on my way to the room. To my relief, I managed to fall asleep before he came back.


	6. His side of things

In the bar, it was hard to keep my eyes off of her for longer periods of time, but she hardly looked in my direction. My mind worked overtime to find a new way to approach this because the last two had ended in yelling. But I didn’t come up with a single thing. 

I watched her talk to strangers, but I also noticed she only drank soda and water. No alcohol. What was the point in no alcohol if she was so determined to get an abortion anyway? Is it because she thinks she needs to get an abortion or because she really wants an abortion? I don’t know. But that observation planted a seed in my head, a doubt. Is this really what she wants? Also, I saw her put her hand on her stomach several times while she talked with different people. To my own surprise, I liked the sight of that. Her smile was wide, but she wrinkled her nose like in disgust every time they looked away. I couldn’t figure out why, though. Maybe because she’s still utterly sober and some of them were pretty drunk. 

At some point, she seemed to have had enough and determinedly walked up to me and annoyed asked for the keys. I handed them to her, my eyes stuck to her back until she was out of the bar. Actually, I was tired, mentally tired after everything that had happened today, but if I went up there now then maybe we were gonna talk, and it would end in yet another fight, and I couldn’t handle that right now. So instead, I waited for close to fifty minutes before I headed up to our room, hoping she had already fallen asleep.


	7. Chapter 7

I kept my eyes shut after turning off the alarm, all I wanted to do was just sleep. If I woke up and got out of bed, I had to face the realities, and I wanted to escape them for a little while longer. Though I tried to stop it, they quickly invaded my thoughts, and in the end, I annoyed pushed the blanket aside and went to the bathroom to take a shower to get the tiredness off me. Jake was still asleep. 

As I washed my hair, I thought of what needed to be done. I had to find out how much an abortion cost. Unless… unless the insurances Kevin provided when we were at the hospital were still valid. I had to call and ask him. Or maybe I should call Tina instead. I wasn’t sure how Kevin would handle me telling him I was pregnant. Most likely, I would probably just freak him out and end up talking with Tina anyway. 

After that, I had to call the Planned Parenthood to get an appointment. That was also why I had set the alarm, so I was sure to be able to call them while they were still open. With our routine lately, I would have woken up long after they had closed. I finished washing myself and just stood under the running water for several minutes. My right hand laid on top of my lower abdomen. Something was in there, I was getting used to the thought of being pregnant, but the more I felt it, the more I wanted it to go away. To just end it as soon as possible. I denied my growing feelings and focused on how incompatible the vampire hunter life was with an infant. It helped. 

Jake was still asleep as I got out and got dressed. I decided to go find some breakfast. 

 

At the grocery store, I looked at the different cereal products, low-fat, healthy, lots of grain, but what did it matter now? Trying to diet while pregnant? Why bother? So I decided for muesli with chocolate chips. Could at least take advantage of the situation and I was so in the mood for chocolate. Which was odd as I wasn’t really the candy eating type of person. Actually, I could really eat some pancakes right now, but I didn’t like cold pancakes, and we didn’t have any hotplates. Jake was more candy-eating than me with his stupid caramels. Caramels? God, I wanted some of those now too, I was even ready to take the ‘carra-mel’ versus ‘car-ml’ discussion that always spawned. I found a big bag, paid, and walked back to the hotel. 

When I reached the entrance, I sat down on the curb, found my phone, and dialed Tina’s number. While I waited for her to pick up, I opened the bag with caramels and took one. It rang a few times, and I had almost hung up when a breathless voice said, “Hello?” 

“Hey Tina, it’s me. Are you busy?” I asked casually. 

“No, it’s fine. I just left my phone in my purse. So what’s up?” She had caught her breath and now had her usual cheerful tone. 

“Um… Can you do me a favor?” I tried to sound casual but failed miserably. 

“Sure?” She sounded curious. 

“Ask Kevin if those insurances are still valid?” I bit my lip as I waited for an answer. 

“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” She said with a small grin like she found it weird that I hadn’t just called him myself. Then my tone must appear more normal than it sounded in my head because she didn’t felt the need to ask if something was wrong. I would probably ruin that now. 

“Because…” I sighed, there was no easy way to say this. 

“Val, what is it? Did something happen?” Now her tone was worried and inquiring, as I had expected. 

“I, uh…” I took a deep breath to build up the courage to say the words, “I’m pregnant, and I need an abortion.”

“Oh,” She sounded both surprised and… disappointed. 

“Yeah, so, uh… you understand why I called you instead of Kevin?”

“Yeah, I do. I’ll just ask him, hang on a second.”

Judging from the sounds, it sounded like she had left the phone on the table before trying to find Kevin. I had eaten two caramels before she was back. 

“I’m sorry, but they got canceled right after your follow up.” She apologized in a low voice. 

“Crap,” I sighed. How much could an abortion cost? Did we have enough money for that? I had no idea what a procedure like that would cost. 

“I’m sorry. But if you need money just say so, if you’re sure this is what you want? The abortion, I mean?” Her consoling had a hollow edge to it, but she really tried, so I ignored it. 

“Thanks, Tina. Yeah, yeah, it is.” 

“What about Jake?” She asked tryingly. 

“He…” I paused, but then it just ran out of me like a flood. “I think he doesn’t want me to have an abortion, I think he wants to keep it. But seriously, this is not a child-friendly environment or even a child-friendly lifestyle we have. I just can’t see how it would ever be possible, I mean, I’m thinking about what’s best for all parties here. Not just me and Jake. And even if we did go through with it what about kindergarten? What about school? How the hell are we ever gonna be able to pay for everything that comes with it? I’m talking diapers, clothes, toys, crib, car seat, and I could keep going!” I sighed deeply as I stopped myself. It felt so good to unload this that I actually had tears in my eyes. Tear of relief because someone finally understood my point of view. But I stubbornly blinked them away. I didn’t know if Tina heard my voice shake slightly. 

“I can see what you mean,” She almost sounded disappointed. In her head, in her life, a pregnancy would be something to celebrate, but for us? Not so much. Then it occurred to me – they lost a child and would probably give everything to get him back, and here I am – pregnant – and simply throwing it away. I suddenly felt so bad about having blown off steam to her. My hand laid on my stomach without barely thinking of it. 

“How far along are you?” She asked quietly. 

“It, uh, it happened five or six weeks ago, I think.” 

“You usually calculate how far along you are based on the first day of your last period. When was that?” Tina patiently explained. 

“Uh,” I tried to remember when it was. It was close to a month after Bill died. He died the 23rd January. “22nd February?” I suggested. It was only an estimate. 

“A little over ten weeks then.” She stated. “If you want that abortion, you have to get it before you’re twenty weeks along, if I remember correctly, or that’s here in California. I don’t know about Nevada, though. But if you need money just say so, then we’ll figure it out afterward, okay?”

Holy crap! Suddenly, I felt like I was in a hurry, I was twice as far along as first assumed. 

“Tina, thank you. I don’t know how much this costs, but I’ll figure it out and let you know. Maybe we have enough, it’s Vegas after all.” I joked. 

“Yeah, you’re right, just keep me updated, okay?” 

“I promise.”

“Good. And… good luck.” 

I hung up after saying goodbye. 

Fucking crap! I had no idea that that was how you calculated how far along you were. On the other hand, I never had any use of any information like that. As I jumped up from the curb, I almost forgot my bag of groceries, which made me look like an idiot as I had already taken a few steps before I remembered it.

Jake was still asleep when I stepped inside the room. He was lying on his stomach, the blanket had slid down revealing the rune on his shoulder blade and half of the dragon tattoo on his back. 

The laptop hissed to life while I put our things in the fridge. First, I found the Planned Parenthood site to see if I could find any prices on such a procedure. Quickly, I found that an in-clinic abortion could cost up to $1,500. It was a lot, but we could make it. Though a medical abortion was cheaper, up to $800, but as I was over ten weeks along, that wasn’t an option. I checked my calendar, and I was pretty sure my last period started the 22nd February. 

Well, at least that was another thing I didn’t have to decide, there were enough decisions as it was. 

Before I called, I checked the state law concerning abortion. Abortions were legal up to twenty-four weeks. I relaxed by that information, I wasn’t in such a hurry as I thought. Furthermore, it turned out that Nevada was the perfect state for me to have an abortion. No mandatory waiting period, no mandatory counseling, meant we could move on as soon as I was out of there, actually. I went back to the Planned Parenthood site to find the number of the nearest health center and called. The call was fairly short, and they gave me an appointment at 3 p.m. the following day. 

“Who was that?” Jake sleepily asked as I hung up, I almost jumped in my chair, I hadn’t heard him waking up. 

“I got an appointment for tomorrow to get the pregnancy confirmed and schedule an abortion,” I stated. His shoulders immediately tensed up. 

“What time tomorrow?” He grumbled. 

“3 p.m.” 

He scoffed in response, but then mumbled under his breath, “It would have been nice to be asked.”

“What was that?” I snapped, though I heard it just fine. If he had a problem he could say it to my face, not mumble it passive aggressively like that. 

“Nothing.” He spat and pulled the green t-shirt over his head, the one that matched his bright eyes. However, now that I paid attention to it his eyes seemed darker in the shadows of his pulled down brows. I knew that look too well. I decided to ignore him as I started to make coffee, I couldn’t handle both this pregnancy and his anger. 

After making the coffee, I placed our breakfast and bowls on the table. Jake had sat down across from me. 

“Crunchy chocolate muesli?” He asked like he thought it was a bad joke. 

“I wanted pancakes, but I can’t make any because we don’t have a hotplate.” I defended. 

“So chocolate makes a good substitute for pancakes?” He asked suspiciously with narrowed eyes. 

I looked down at my bowl for a couple of seconds before I decided to come clean. “And caramels too,” I confessed as I drew them out from the brown paper bag on the floor and put them on the table between us as evidence. 

He pressed his lips together like he was trying really hard to contain a smile because he was still pissed. His eyes flickered from the bag to me, I bit my lower lip. “Well, at least you saved some for me.” He finally snickered while looking at the open bag. 

“Shut up.” I tried to sound strict but failed. The atmosphere loosened slightly after that. But I knew we weren’t ‘good’ yet as he didn’t even correct my pronunciation of caramel. Usually, he didn’t miss a chance to do that. 

 

An uncomfortable silence laid over us the rest of the day until we had to go out. Throughout the day, I had tried to think of another excuse for not drinking as I couldn’t go through another night where I had to pretend to be happy about my pregnancy. Finally, I came up with an excuse that involved pneumonia, antibiotics, and an insisting father that demanded I attended my sister’s engagement party accompanied with some fake coughing.


	8. His side of things

This night, she didn’t make that wrinkly-nose-grimace every time she talked to people, but that was the only difference from yesterday. She still only drank soda and water, and her right hand often laid on top of her stomach like pregnant women often do, Val was just still missing the baby bump. Or when she stood sideways and leaned back, it looked like there was a very small round contour, like she had half an apple under the dress. 

I felt like her words contradicted her actions. She said she wants an abortion, but she doesn’t drink, and it’s like her hand constantly protects her stomach. If she really didn’t want this baby then why is she acting like that? It didn’t make much sense to me. Redheads… 

A little while later, I got a drink at the bar, Val had just begun talking to a small group of people. Her back was turned towards me, I didn’t know if she had noticed me, I don’t think so. As the bartender handed me the drink, my ear caught half of a sentence Val said, “…had pneumonia, so I gotta stay off the wagon for at least another week.” 

“Why aren’t you in bed then?” Someone asked her while she coughed weakly. 

“My dad insisted that I attended my sister’s engagement party, I snuck out. I simply had to get away from my family even if it’s only for an hour.” She responded. 

Pneumonia? Seriously? I rolled my eyes and left the bar before I would comment on it. Her excuse pissed me off. Why hide the fact that she’s pregnant? Who else rest their hand on their stomach like that? 

 

I started to feel… it was like when I got that tightness in my chest because of the broken ribs, but different somehow, like it was more around my chest instead of inside me at the beginning. Soon it materialized, changed, and I recognized it. 

No, please… please don’t… I hid my face in my hands. 

It was demons… demons who were ready to grab my insides. But I had come so far. Why? They hadn’t materialized so much I could feel their names, but they were there for sure. Lurking at the edges like heavy storm clouds gathering, getting ready for a thunderstorm. Sipping Jack D more generously, caused several trips to the bar. I tried to calm my nerves as the restlessness and uneasiness crept in on me and the more I felt like I was being suffocated from the inside. I loosened my tie several times. Why did I put it on tonight? But at the next trip to the restrooms, I ripped it off, rolled it up, and put it in my pocket. I opened the first few buttons in my white shirt, it had been washed earlier today, but if I kept sweating like this, I would have to wash it again tomorrow. My hands on the sink supported my weight as I tried to relax, tried to calm everything inside me, but the powerlessness-demon pulsated more strongly for every second this went on. 

What is happening? 

I took a couple of deep breaths, splashed some water on my face, and went back into the bar as I didn’t think it would get any better than this. 

I got a glass of water at the bar. It didn’t appear to me that I was looking for Val before my eyes unconsciously fell on her after seeking her out. She made a fake cough while talking to a couple of people I didn’t pay much attention to. 

Why the bad act? Val could usually lie flawlessly, but it seemed like she didn’t even try with the coughing and everything tonight. I wondered why nobody had noticed how fake it was. 

An irritation started to rise in me. Quickly I realized that the irritation slowly pushed the mess inside me aside, the more it grew, so I let it flow unrestricted. And over the next twenty minutes, I didn’t notice the power it got over me along with what it released before it was too late. 

I ordered the second glass of Jack D since the restroom. Eight feet to my left was Val, her back was turned towards me, but her silver dress lit up like a beacon to me. Like my eyes kept getting drawn to it and her. She probably hasn’t seen me, she emptied a glass with what looked like club soda and placed it on the desk, her head turned the opposite direction. Before I could stop myself, or actually what I had been wrapped into, I spoke, “Pneumonia, huh?” I noted with a scornful edge in my voice I couldn’t really control. 

Surprised, she turned around, but as soon as she saw it was me, her face morphed into irritation. 

What does she have to be irritated about? That fake coughing she had produced all night was _irritating_ to watch. It _irritated_ me that nobody seemed to have seen through her lie and I really felt an urge to call her out on her bullshit. 

After a couple of seconds, it appeared to me that she wasn’t going to respond. Why don’t I give her something to be _irritated_ about? 

“Funny your right hand repeatedly lies on your stomach then,” I stated and took a sip of my whiskey. 

“It doesn’t.” She immediately denied. 

Oh, but it does, sweetheart. “It does.” You might be blind, but I’m not. I’m not the one lying and pretending here. 

She stubbornly returned my accusing gaze for a long time without saying anything, but everything she wanted to say laid in her green eyes. Clear as a bell, I heard her words _There’s nothing to talk about._

It _irritated_ me that she was unable to communicate properly, it _irritated_ me that she just shut me out and cut me off as she has done since yesterday. Actually, a lot of things about her _irritated_ me at the moment. 

I took another sip of my whiskey without breaking our stare. As the glass left my lips, a movement caught my eye, her right hand slowly moved from her side to her stomach. With my eyes and hand, I gestured for her to look down to see the evidence herself. Her eyes dropped from mine to see what I pointed at and then her mouth opened slightly in surprise along with a rapidly increasing frown. 

“Jackass.” She hissed with a last look at me before she marched towards the exit of the bar. 

So I’m the jackass just because I stated a fact? I can’t help that you’re so oblivious about your own body. 

I reached her just as we entered the hall. With a hand on her shoulder, I got her to turn around and face me. 

“Why not just say you’re pregnant? It’s the most obvious reason for not drinking. And it’s not a lie.” I inquired. 

“Because I can’t stand another night where I have to pretend to be happy about it!” She retorted. Her words were like a punch in the face I hadn’t foreseen. 

“You despise it that much?” Though all the talking about abortion had made it clear she wanted to get rid of it, it still confused me. Again, why wouldn’t she drink and why was her hand constantly protecting her belly? 

“It shouldn’t have happened.” She stated low. At least she didn’t confirm what I had accused her of. 

“Really? Then why did you fuck up your birth control?” I just wanted to get back at her. I wanted to blame her for as much as I could. Or the black monster wanted that. I knew it wasn’t true, but the more, the better. 

“I didn’t do it on purpose! Do you think I’m that stupid?” She asked aghast. 

So she did fuck them up? Why not just say so then? Why lie? Why wasn’t she more careful if she really didn’t want this? Maybe she is stupid. Stubborn she surely is. 

I was just about to say that perhaps she was when she said, “Fuck you.” Like she knew what I was gonna say. 

“Can I at least get a kiss first?” I sarcastically threw back and chugged down half of the whiskey. Why not? Some say angry sex should be good. 

With a snort, she turned on her heels and hastily walked towards the elevator. 

One part of me wanted to follow her, but I knew the best thing was to let her go. The black monster had its claws too deeply in me, and I didn’t trust myself regarding what I would say or do. I chugged down the rest of the whiskey and walked back into the bar to get another. 

And another. 

And another…


	9. Chapter 9

“Pneumonia, huh?” A voice I knew too well said behind me when I was alone at the bar. I turned around to find Jake staring disapprovingly at me, the bartender handed him a glass with some dark golden drink in it, probably whiskey. Jack Daniels if I knew him. I decided to ignore him and his mocking tone. 

“Funny your right hand repeatedly lies on your stomach then.” He continued in the same tone and a raised eyebrow while he took a sip of his drink. 

“It doesn’t.” I hissed. I would have noticed if I did that, wouldn’t I? 

“It does.” He said in a stern voice that made it clear he wanted me to admit he was right. His darkened eyes with the daring note didn’t leave mine again. I didn’t shy away from his intense glare. It felt like our glowering contest lasted several minutes until he, with his eyes and the hand that held the glass, gestured to my stomach. Involuntarily, I followed his gestures and looked down only to find my right hand resting on my lower abdomen. 

God-fucking-dammit. 

“Jackass.” I snapped before I turned around, though it wasn’t his fault, but I hated that he was right, especially when he seemed so condescending about it. As I reached the hall, a hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. 

“Why not just say you’re pregnant? It’s the most obvious reason for not drinking. And it’s not a lie.” He asked quietly, but in a firm voice as I faced him. 

“Because I can’t stand another night where I have to pretend to be happy about it!” I admitted annoyed. I knew it wasn’t the most diplomatic response, but I hoped it would shut him up because I didn’t want to get into another fight, especially not here. 

“You despise it that much?” He wondered lowly, but somehow threatening. His brow was furrowed in perplexity. 

I didn’t know what to answer. I didn’t despise it, it was just inconvenient, and it shouldn’t have happened. I decided to tell the last part. “It shouldn’t have happened.”

“Really? Then why did you fuck up your birth control?” His eyes were filled with accusations even though his voice was cool and level. 

How did he know that? I hadn’t told him. The only thing I had said was that they weren’t 100% effective. Did he get to that conclusion himself or was he guessing? But there was no reason to lie, I could just as well own up to it. “I didn’t do it on purpose! Do you think I’m that stupid?” 

He seemed like he strongly considered it. 

“Fuck you.” To hell with what he thought. It didn’t matter anyway. 

“Can I at least get a kiss first?” He mocked and took a sip of the glass he was still holding in his hand. 

Why was he being like this? Was it because he had been drinking? I decided that the best thing was to get some distance between us, maybe talk about it tomorrow instead. So with an annoyed scoff, I turned around and headed for the elevator, I couldn’t help but listen closely after his footsteps to determine if he was following me. I remember too well what happened in the elevator last time he was pissed at me. 

I breathed a sigh of relief when I closed the hotel room door behind me and leaned against it. Quickly, I ran through our exchange of sentences in the bar and realized if I hadn’t allowed myself to be provoked by him, we could have avoided that fight. Maybe I was starting to get hormonal or something. 

As I was about to kick off my heels, I caught myself with my right hand on my lower abdomen again. God, he was right. But why did I do that? It must be some maternal instinct because I didn’t care about that thing inside me. 

_Or do you?_

Nope. No, no, no, no – maternal instinct, nothing more I quickly convinced myself. 

_Then why don’t you just drink?_

Because that was something you just didn’t do, it was a moral thing, nothing more than that. I could feel that snarky voice was preparing another snide comment, so I hastily tuned it out by humming a random melody while undressing, putting the latest catch on the table along with my knife, and removing my makeup. As I tucked myself under the covers, I considered reading, but as it was already this late, I decided to try to sleep straight away, I was actually tired now that I laid down. To my relief, it didn’t take many minutes before I was sound asleep.


	10. His side of things

God, she’s right. I am a jackass. It was going so well, apart from the fight the other night before we knew she was pregnant. I had gotten rid of so many demons, kept the monsters partially at bay, but now it felt like they all came crashing down on me. Capturing me. Drowning me. Because she’s unable to communicate and keeps shutting me out. But on the other hand, that’s always been a problem for her… so why should it be different now? 

I felt a déjà vu. Our first fight where I also went drinking afterward. I have had close to the same feelings back then, though it felt much worse as I looked back at it and I realized this might be a relapse, but at least it’s not as bad as back then. Or not yet, at least. There were also a lot of new feelings. Like she was trying to take something away from me. It was slipping out of my hands, and I had no control over it, and no say in this. I was actually surprised about how I felt about her being pregnant compared to the fact that I had never thought about kids, not even a long-term relationship had been on my mind. Not until Val and I started this. Along with everything else that was going on inside me right now, it felt overwhelming. Which made my thoughts wander back to the disclosure of the fact that she had fucked up her birth control. What’s the point of taking them then? I sighed, you know what? It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. It can’t change the fact that she’s pregnant. 

I ordered another Jack D, even though I knew I shouldn’t, but perhaps if I drank a little more, that huge gap between Val and me would seem a little smaller. Just for a while. I realized I wasn’t only feeling like something was about to be taken away from me, but also that she felt farther away. 

Chugging down the last of the whiskey, I decided it was time to go to bed. I was sure she was asleep by now. 

In front of the door to our room, I searched my pockets for the keys twice before I remembered Val was already in there, so the door was unlocked. Or I hoped at least. Well, I hadn’t been that bad. However, I held my breath when I pressed down the handle and exhaled when it opened. I stumbled out of my clothes and threw myself on the bed with a sigh.

I was so ready to go to sleep…

 

Okay, this isn’t happening apparently. I looked at the clock, I had tried to fall asleep for half an hour now. My head fell back onto the pillow, and I stared up at the ceiling. The sleep just wouldn’t come, I felt tired, but at the same time, I was fully awake. Probably because of everything that was going on inside me. I wasn’t dead drunk, meaning that they weren’t ‘paralyzed,’ only dulled slightly, but it wasn’t enough. 

Far from enough. It was like they were having a party, not the good kind. It was at that point where everybody is too drunk, is super-loud, they smash and break things, and won’t listen to reason before they had sobered up. 

They were deafening. At least the black monster had pulled into the background, but it gave space to the nameless demons that didn’t have a permanent grip on me yet. 

Acknowledging them and focusing my attention on them made it seem like it was harder to breathe. It’s been a long time since it was this bad. In the beginning, it was much worse, I had no idea how could I stand it. I couldn’t, but I lived through that though I had no idea how I managed to do it. 

Wait… yes, I did. I turned my head to look at her. My eyes had gotten used to the darkness. With ease, I could see she was lying on her back, her arms slung carelessly above her head. Her chest rose and fell slowly but steadily. The blanket covered her naked breasts. 

I need her. I need her to tame the storm inside of me. It’s spinning out of control, and I need her to conquer the darkness in me. 

With the bravery the alcohol had given me, I crawled under her blanket without hesitation, laid on my side against her, she was only wearing panties and placed a kiss on her cheek that led to another, and another. I kissed her jawline, moved down to her neck I gently nipped. She let out a deep sigh and mumbled something, but nothing suggested that she was awake yet. 

My right hand moved over her stomach, lingered at her lower abdomen for a few seconds before it ran up and cupped her left breast. I pressed myself against her side, her soft skin felt heavenly. A quiet moan got muffled against her neck as I kissed it more intensely. She let out another sigh that morphed into a weak moan as she started squirming almost unnoticeable. My path of kisses now led me to her lips that were first immovable, but after a couple of seconds, they thawed and slowly began following the rhythm of mine. Her right arm suddenly slung around my neck with such a force that made me certain that she wasn’t completely awake. It actually hurt a bit. My hand that had gently massaged her breast moved to her back as her hips twisted towards me and she moaned into my mouth. Then her head whipped to the side, ripping her lips away from mine like she got surprised by something. Her eyes were open, and she looked disoriented back at me. “Jake? What–” She mumbled feebly. 

I put my index finger on her lips. “Shh, don’t talk, baby,” I whispered. 

If you start talking, then we’re just gonna fight, that’s how it’s been for the past two days. Every time one of us opens our mouth, it ends in yelling, and I don’t want that now. I just want you, to be close to you. I need it, I need you. 

Without speaking a single one of those words, I kissed her again. She didn’t protest, in fact, both her arms were now around my neck, her top leg wrapped around me as well when she let my lips and tongue take the steering over hers. I pushed her to her back and laid between her legs. A louder moan came from her when I rubbed myself against her, and I couldn’t help but moan with her. 

This, right here, was so uncomplicated. It was just what I needed. She filled me with her antidote, made everything temporarily go away, so it was only her and me, nothing else existed besides us. 

After a couple of minutes, I moved down to kiss her neck. I felt her nails on my back when I moved farther down to her breasts. Her breathing was already accelerating. As I kissed and licked between her breasts like I knew she liked, her hands intertwined in my hair, and she moaned continuously. I moved back up to her neck again, her moans quieted down a little. 

“Shouldn’t we–” She began after I heard her sigh and swallow thickly. I quickly silenced her by pressing my index finger against her lips, and by a miracle, she shut up and kept quiet. 

I knew what she was gonna say. _Shouldn’t we talk_?’ And no, that would just make it worse. If you first start talking, then this isn’t happening, and then I have no hope of just getting a few hours of sleep or some peace and quiet inside of me. In fact, it would probably only get worse after another fight with you. 

I replaced my index finger with my lips, and she willingly submitted to it. To me. My hands wandered over her body, caressed her breasts, stroked her thighs, squeezed her ass, all while I kissed her more insistently and rubbed harder against her. I quickly became damp with the blanket lying on the lower middle of my back, but I didn’t bother to push it off me. It was like our own personal cocoon, shutting the world out. 

My hands found the waistband of her panties and started pulling them off. I quickly got out of my boxers as well, and when I crawled back up, I dragged the blanket with me, wanting to preserve the enveloped feeling. 

My lips locked onto hers once again. Her hips tilted upwards as my member rubbed against her naked skin and felt her wetness. Hectic moans and complaining sounds left her lips in between our kisses. 

She’s always so impatient. 

My right hand in her hair tightened its grip and made sure to keep her lips out of reach of mine when I pulled back, my other hand left her thigh to guide myself into her. First, I ran up and down her wetness to tease her a little. 

She was so wet!

As she let out a helpless yelp, I pushed slowly into her with a small moan, hers rose in volume the deeper I entered her, and her nails dug deeper into my back until it hurt. I let out a groan in pain as her nails sank deeper into my skin when I gave her a slow thrust. 

God, it hurt. I was sure she’d punctured the skin by now. Grabbing her elbows, I held her arms to the mattress, my hands slid up her forearms, and I interlaced my fingers with hers on each side of her head as I gave her another slow thrust. Her legs wrapped around my waist and pushed up to meet my next thrust. 

Oh no, you’re not getting a say in this, baby. 

I changed my tactics. So instead of pushing my whole length into her I only did shallow thrusts, where less than half of me entered her. Silently, I counted in my head and on the tenth thrust, I went as deep into her as I could get, releasing a deep, satisfied moan from her before going back to the shallow thrusts. I continued to thrust shallowly into her a random number of times before I gave her one to four deep thrusts, rewarding me with pleasurable cries when I went deep into her. Though it was dark, I looked deep into her eyes the whole time to watch and enjoy the pleasure I gave her, only interrupted with greedy kisses.

“You like that?” I held still and whispered in a panting breath after a particularly hard thrust that made her cry out in delight. 

“Yes, yes I did.” She instantly moaned. 

I couldn’t hold back a smile. “Do you want more?” I lured as I circled inside her.

“Yes,” She begged lustfully. 

“Yes, what?” I teased her to drag it out, though the blood was pounding in my member and the sweat running down my forehead and back. The beast was the one having a say in this. 

“Yes, _please_.” She pleaded urgently. Her legs tried to press me forward, but I held back. 

I released my right hand from her fingers to grab her chin between my thumb and index finger. “Good girl.” I praised her before my lips attacked hers prior to a single hard and deep thrust into her. Her cry got muffled by my tongue. Detaching our lips, I whispered against her lips, “You want another?” 

“Yes, please!” She cried desperately. 

I gave her a thrust equal to the previous one, except this time, I didn’t kiss her, but our lips, open in gratification, touched each other, making us breathe the same air as she moaned, I grunted. 

“Another?” I asked breathlessly. 

“Yes!” She begged loudly. “Give it to me, please. Fuck me!” 

Oh, my pleasure, but I wouldn’t give it to her that easy. I liked to tease her. The beast liked to tease her, and see her writhe and beg. And I loved to see that lusty look on her face thought the light was scarce. 

Again, I circled inside her, her hips shot forward to get the most out of it. When she least expected it, I gave her a hard thrust. I felt her insides cringe together as she cried out. With a grunt, I gave her another one. Her free hand laid around my neck and dragged me down to her lips she met greedily. My hand that has had a hold of her chin grabbed her wrist and held it to the mattress again. As I held still, my fingers moved up and once again interlaced with hers. It was intimate, but controlling at the same time and I really liked it. I held still inside her while I playfully brushed my lips against hers and gently bit her lower lip, but kept out of reach for a real kiss until she really began squirming and her noises became more desperate. 

“Jake–” She cried. I cut her off by meeting her lips and then started with slow, gentle thrusts that slowly got deeper, harder, and faster. The harder and deeper I went into her, the more aggressively I kissed her. 

On a whim, I tore my lips from hers, my right hand released hers to grab her hair, and pushed her lips to my neck. “Bite me!” I demanded in her ear. She instantly bit the skin of my neck. I inhaled sharply through my teeth as it hurt and my hand in her hair tightened its grip. For every second, I was groaningly thrusting harder and faster into her, now the sweat was close to dripping off me. The tightness in my chest increased slightly, but it was bearable. I ripped her head back, away from my neck, pulled it to the side to expose her neck and sank my teeth into her skin as I came inside her with three hard thrusts that made her cry out more high-pitched. Her skin muffled my satiated outbursts.

I released her neck and tried to catch my breath for a few seconds. My hand released her hair, and I rested my weight on my forearm on the mattress while I still panted. Everything inside me was like paralyzed. Paralyzed by her, and I enjoyed the silence endlessly as I kissed her neck right where I had bitten her.

Her hand stroked my cheek up to my forehead like she was wiping the sweat away when I raised my head to look down on her, and it settled at my neck. She turned her head and met my lips tenderly. Moaning into the kiss when I slowly pulled out of her and I joined her with a small, involuntary moan. 

We continued kissing for a couple of minutes where I caught my breath, and my heart rate slowed down. 

As I detached my lips to look down on her, she started talking again, “Jake, what happened earlier–”

Seriously?

Again, I put my index finger to her lips and shushed her, “Not now, sweetheart.” I whispered. With a frown, she gave me an uncertain look but kept quiet for a few seconds though it looked like she really wanted to say something. 

I’m tired, but I got an idea on how to shut her up and make her just as tired as me, hopefully. 

I got off her and laid down beside her. “Your turn now,” I whispered promising as my left arm sneaked under her neck, making her rest her head on my biceps. My right hand ran down between her breasts, and when it reached her stomach, I grabbed her waist and pulled her up and backward, leaving us spooning, before it moved farther down her stomach, but passed the destination to her thigh. She had already spread her legs, her breathing had become deeper in anticipation. 

Getting a hold of her leg, I pulled it back to lie over mine, giving me plenty of room to work with. With my fingers, I tickled her from her right knee to the top of her thigh, she got goosebumps and shuddered a bit. She gasped as I let my middle finger run past her sweet spot to her wetness where I wandered up and down a few times. Her hands grabbed onto the sheets as she let out a deep moaning sigh. As I kissed her neck, I pushed my middle and ring finger into her which instantly made her squirm a lot and moan. Moving them inside her, her hips followed the rhythm of my fingers. My thumb found her most sensitive spot and rubbed. 

“Oh, yes,” She cried weakly. 

I gently nipped the skin of her neck but steered clear of the bite mark I had just made. My left hand sought her breast, I could just reach it with my arm under her head. Her hand laid on top of mine on her breast where she interlaced her fingers with mine, helping me massaging her breast more firmly. With my teeth, I captured her earlobe, and a shiver ran through her body, her breathing became more hectic as I worked harder between her legs. 

I couldn’t help myself from rubbing against her ass as she continuously pushed it back as a result of her hips trying to follow the rhythm of my fingers inside her. Quickly I found that I didn’t have more in me, either because I was tired or because of the alcohol I had been drinking or perhaps a mix of both. But it still felt good, as I was still somewhat sensitive. And it helped me to control her body even more. Every time she pushed back, I pushed her forward. 

My breathing against her skin was heavy and slightly panting from the exertion to work on her and keep her body in place up against mine. I pushed her head back with my left hand that had just taken care of her breast and moved down to kiss her neck again, I started on the side and kissed every inch that was in my reach. 

I upped my tempo on her making her cries reach a new volume, my left hand pressed down on her mouth to muffle her. She tried to close her legs, but I kept her top leg on top of mine with my right forearm. She suddenly gave a jerk that made her able to close her legs. 

Oh no, baby, that’s not how this works. 

With my forearm, I ripped her legs back over mine, continuing to press on her thigh to keep it back and keep her legs spread. As she squirmed even more, I captured her top leg between mine, so she had no chance of closing her legs. 

I could feel the tightness in my chest return. Apparently, it was too much struggling and keeping her down. But I only had to hold out for a little while longer, her legs were trembling slightly now, indicating she was close. 

Pressing my hand harder down over her mouth, I once again upped my tempo on her. One of her hands laid on top of the one over her mouth, I didn’t know if it was to help me contain her outbursts or if she was trying to remove it. Her other hand had clutched onto the sheets and pulled on it. The trembling of her legs increased until I felt the contractions ripple through her insides as her hips bucked wildly and a distorted cry came from underneath my hand. 

As her squirming and contractions inside her quieted down, I loosened my grip on her. When she laid still, I removed my hand from her mouth so I could stick my fingers that had just been inside her into her mouth. She willingly opened her mouth and lazily sucked my fingers clean. She sighed contended when I pulled my fingers out of her mouth. 

“We should get some sleep,” I suggested and placed a kiss on her cheek. 

“Mmm,” She agreed. Her eyes were already closed. 

I sneaked my left arm out from under her and took the blankets from the foot of the bed and pulled over us. “Goodnight, beautiful,” I whispered, turned her head, and kissed her. 

“Goodnight.” She mumbled when our lips left each other.


	11. Chapter 11

I was having a nice dream. It didn’t really make any sense, there were some colors and noises I couldn’t make out at all, but it just felt good. Really good. 

Yes, right there, I thought as the good feeling spread. I got carried away in it, wrapped in it as the arousal rose in me. In the dream, someone kissed me. I didn’t know who it was, but it felt good, like everything else. 

It suddenly felt too real. The good feeling, the warmth, and the touch. I broke through the fog to consciousness. Confused, I pulled back to take it all in. There were arms around me, a face very close to mine. It was pitch black, but I could sense the silhouette of the person I was intertwined with. It was Jake, wasn’t it? 

Yes, it was. I could recognize his touch, his smell, though a sharp stench of alcohol hit me. 

“Jake? What–” I asked groggily. 

One of his fingers instantly interrupted me when it laid on my lips, “Shh, don’t talk, baby.” He shushed. 

I had been about to ask him what he was doing though it was pretty obvious, but the sleep hadn’t left me completely. And when I closed my eyes as he kissed me, it felt like I floated somewhere in between an awake state and sleep. It was a leisurely and soothing feeling. Like everything of me and around me disappeared except the parts that were in contact with him, my lips, my hands, and my skin awoke the places his hands and body touched me. I indulged in it. It was like I didn’t have full control over my body because of the grogginess, but now I was completely intertwined with him, both my arms laid around his neck, my top leg was wrapped around his waist, our lips glued together. 

With his upper body, he pushed me to my back and quickly laid on top of me, or maybe it just seemed quick because my mind was in such a dulled state. An involuntary moan left me as he rubbed himself against me and to my surprise, he moaned with me. His tongue eagerly took the lead over mine, and I felt myself get damp as he rubbed his bulge against me without a stop. Being deprived of my sight along with only being half-awake made every touch and movement more intense somehow, like it was amplified. The only thing I really noticed besides all that was the whiskey taste and smell that surrounded him.

His mouth moved down to my neck where he spent some time before he moved down to caress my breasts with his lips and tongue. My hands grabbed his hair, and my back arched when he spend some time at my sweet spot between my breasts. As he moved up to my neck again, I opened my eyes. What were we doing? Weren’t we fighting? Was it just his dick that steered him now because he was drunk? 

“Shouldn’t we–” I started, but again he pressed a finger against my lips, but only for a moment before he sealed his lips to mine. 

I wanted to say, ‘shouldn’t we stop? You’re drunk, so maybe it’s better if we just waited.’ But a part of me didn’t want to stop. This was easier, right now, we didn’t have to talk, I didn’t have to listen to his ‘I wanna talk about this’ and all his questions, accusations, and crap. 

So I let go. Like before, I indulged in his touch, the feeling of him as his hands traveled around my body while he rubbed against me. His skin was warm against mine, his heat was impressive, and it didn’t take long before his heated skin was damp against mine, though I was already wet between my legs. 

He pulled the panties off me, then his boxers, and laid down on top of me and kissed me again. I noticed he pulled the blanket up with him, which puzzled me, as he was already so hot and sweaty. He rubbed against me, I felt the full extent of his hardness against my naked skin, it felt much more tantalizing now that we were both naked. I pushed my hips forward to feel more of him and to tell him I wanted him inside me. All my thoughts about the fight, our situation, the appointment tomorrow were temporarily forgotten. 

As he pulled his lips away, his hand in my hair made sure I couldn’t follow him. He wanted to look at me when he entered me, but he didn’t at first. Teasingly, he swiped up and down, my body almost trembled, and it felt so heavenly when he slowly pushed his big, hard length into me. His moan drowned in mine, but the groan he let out at the first gentle thrust was much higher. I didn’t even notice that the groan was caused by the pain my nails on his back caused him until he grabbed my arms and held them to the mattress. His hands traveled up my arms and his fingers intertwined with mine like he was soothing the brutal gesture of holding me down. Wrapping my legs around him, my hips met his next gentle thrust. 

I more sensed his smirk than saw it as he pulled out and only went halfway into me before pulling out again. He repeated that for what felt like a long time. I was close to trembling from the anticipation of it, as I was sure he would, at some point, push fully into me. And when he did, I gave a little jolt and a long moan as I felt everything inside me cringe together. As he, again, returned to only going halfway into me, I longed for the next one, the next deep and hard thrust. It felt utterly satisfying when he finally gave it to me. 

He went on like this for such a long time, I became just as sweaty as he was. I tried to count the shallow thrust, but he never did it the same amount of times, it was impossible to predict when his next hard thrust would come. When I felt like he couldn’t torture or give me more pleasure than he already did, he gave me two hard thrusts in a row. But the next time, it was only one, then three, then two, then four, then one in between his shallow thrust. Again, it was impossible to predict what was coming next. It was heavenly torture, which was increased by the way he looked at me. My eyes had gotten more used to the absence of light, and I could see his intense, but voracious stare. The only thing that could break the captivity of my gaze was his short but rapacious kisses. 

A thrust so hard it felt like he speared me, made a cry tear my lips apart and my body jolt and squirm. 

“You like that?” He asked in a low seducing voice as he completely stopped moving inside me. 

“Yes, yes I did.” It came out as a desperate moan. 

A wide smirk spread on his lips. “Do you want more?” He allured and prolonged his torture by circling his hips. 

“Yes,” I pleaded, the desperate note in my tone made my voice shrill. 

“Yes, what?” He asked slowly while he tried to hide the growing smirk. 

“Yes, _please_ ,” I begged and threw my head back. My legs felt weak, but I gathered my strength and tightened around him, trying to move him inside me, but I couldn’t. 

His right hand captured my chin. “Good girl.” He cooed before his lips covered mine just a second before he gave me one hard thrust that made me cry out, but his lips and tongue muffled me. When I was quiet again, he pulled his lips from mine. “You want another?” He asked, his lips were so close they were touching mine for every word he spoke. 

“Yes, please!” I begged loudly, and he rewarded me with another hard thrust. Most of all, I wanted right now was for him to thrust hard and continuously into me, giving me some sort of release to this sweet torture. 

“Another?” He asked almost mockingly. He knew exactly what he was doing to me. 

“Yes!” I begged even louder. “Give it to me, please. Fuck me!” I pleaded, I couldn’t hold it back any longer. 

Instead of a thrust, he circled his hips again, circling inside me. I longingly pushed my hips up. He waited for another couple of seconds before he finally gave me a thrust. Shortly after, he gave me another one accompanied by a grunt. 

Now that my left hand was free, I grabbed his neck and pulled his lips to mine. Only a second after, his hand grabbed my wrist and held it down on the mattress again with his fingers intertwined with mine. 

At first, I thought he was done with the teasing, but then he detached his lips from mine only to brush them against mine, but every time I leaned forward to meet them, he pulled back, always keeping his lips just out of reach for a kiss. Soon after, he started to gently bite my lower lip, mixed it up with the brushing of his lips. He continued for so long while holding still inside me that I thought I was going to explode. 

“Jake–” I begged, but I didn’t get to say more than his name before he sealed his lips to mine followed by a gentle thrust. To my relief and gratification, he continued to thrust deep into me, going a little harder and faster for every thrust. His kiss got more advancing the rougher he got with me. 

Oh god, yes! It felt so good to finally having him thrust into me without a stop. 

Suddenly, his lips left mine, he grabbed my hair and held my face to the right side of his neck. “Bite me!” He ordered. 

I didn’t hesitate, I just did as he said. His tone compelled me. Letting my teeth sink into his skin, I heard him suck in a breath through his teeth and felt his hand in my hair tighten its grip as he fought to thrust harder and faster into me. 

As suddenly as his demand, he pulled my head back and bit me in return. Quickly, I found that he had bitten me because he came as I felt the three powerful and forceful thrusts into me along with his grunts of gratification. His teeth let go as he lied still and rested some weight on me. I felt his panting breath against my stinging skin and felt his body trembling ever so slightly. He shifted his weight, so he wasn’t leaning so much on me and then kissed my neck gently. His sweaty temple touched my jaw so when he lifted his head, I let my hand wipe the sweat away before it glided to his neck, and I kissed him. He moaned into the kiss, as did I when he gently pulled out of me. We continued to kiss gently, but now that his hard length wasn’t thrusting into me, pushing the thoughts aside they began swirling in my mind just as when we started, only worse now because I was more awake. 

It seemed that we weren’t fighting anymore, there didn’t seem to be any hard feelings. But as I had realized earlier, I had let him provoke me, and I wanted to apologize. I should just have walked away when he started talking to me at the bar, instead of retorting, calling him a jackass and get pissed, proving to me I wasn’t as good at the ‘buffer-solution’ as first assumed. 

Yeah, I needed to apologize, it was my fault it had evolved into a fight earlier. 

“Jake, what happened earlier–” I started when he withdrew his lips and looked down on me. 

“Not now, sweetheart.” He shushed firmly, but gently. And for the third time, he put his index finger against my lips. 

But… 

Before I came up with another approach, he laid down beside me. “Your turn now,” He said as his arms wrapped around me, his left hand laid beneath my neck for my head to rest on, the right traveled down between my breasts and stomach. When he reached my hips, he grabbed around me and pulled me back towards his body, so we were now spooning. His hand now moved down, and I spread my legs farther the closer he got to my sweet spot, but he passed it and continued to my thigh, which he grabbed, and pulled my leg back and on top of his. It almost tickled when his fingers stroked up my inner thigh with a feather-light touch. One of his fingers finally reached my sweet spot, and I let out a gasp, but he only stroked it shortly before it glided up and down my wetness instead. Against my will, I let out a moan, it felt good even though it wasn’t where I wanted to be touched the most. 

He began kissing my neck and then pushed two fingers into me. Again, I couldn’t hold back a moan as he started moving them inside me, compelling my hips to follow his rhythm. Finally, his thumb found my sweet spot, and I couldn’t help but moan, “Oh, yes,”

His mouth found my neck, his left hand my breast. In lust, I laid my hand on top of his to make him squeeze my breast harder. My breathing became more labored and moan-full as he increased his effort between my legs slightly. It sent a shiver through my body when his teeth bit and nipped on my earlobe. His breathing was again panting, and I felt his warm breath on my skin and in my ear.

Oh, it felt so good! His fingers inside me hit the best spot along with his thumb working on my sweetest spot. 

When my squirming became too much, I felt Jake push his hips forward to get the bucking movement of my hips to quiet down. His left hand grabbed my jaw and pushed my head back, he nipped one last time in my earlobe before moving back down to my neck where he meticulously kissed every inch. As he had kissed every inch of skin within his reach and he started over, his fingers between my legs took it up a notch. I let out a particularly high cry that made his hand fly up and cover my mouth. It just added to the pleasure he was giving me, and I had to close my legs, but he quickly got them spread again by ripping my top leg back over his with his forearm and kept it pressed against my thigh to keep my legs apart. Not being able to close my legs did always make it more intense, especially the closer I got. It didn’t take long before he captured my top leg between his to make absolutely sure I couldn’t close them. My cries increased under his hand, and my own hand flew to his to try and contain them physically as they only got higher and louder for every second as I felt my sweet release approach. 

Oh God, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It was so good it was almost too much. The way he had locked my body against his, prohibiting my movements, the way his hand pushed harder and harder down on my mouth, and the magic he did with his fingers between my legs. Hearing and feeling his exerted breath on my skin, finally made my insides convulse and the orgasm washed over me. 

As it ebbed off and my body didn’t writhe as much, his grip on me slowly loosened, and he pulled his fingers out of me. He removed the hand that covered my mouth and led his fingers that had just been inside me into my mouth. The salty taste spread in my mouth, the taste of us both. I slowly sucked the salty fluid of his fingers. 

When they were clean, he pulled them out, and I tiredly sighed. The sweet torture and anticipation along with my orgasm had drained me, and I was ready to go back to sleep immediately. 

“We should get some sleep,” Jake said like he had heard my thoughts. He placed a gentle kiss on my cheek. 

“Mmm,” I agreed. I knew I had to pull the blanket over me, but as it was right now, I wasn’t cold, on the contrary, I was still damp, and Jake’s body was still pressed against mine, he would keep me warm. He withdrew his left arm from under me, then his body left mine. 

No, come back. But I was too well on my way to dreamland to protest out loud. A second after, a blanket covered me. 

“Goodnight, beautiful,” Jake whispered. With a finger, he turned my head and kissed me shortly. 

“Goodnight,” I mumbled, it didn’t take many minutes before I was asleep again.


	12. Chapter 12

The alarm tore me out of my sleep way too early compared to how much sleep I actually had gotten. I had set it early enough so we could hit the gym before the appointment. Jake grumpily rolled out of bed and put his gym clothes on. As we got dressed, my eyes caught the slight red mark on his neck. It was clear to see I didn’t bite nearly as hard he did, but hard enough that the redness would still be there for a day or two. It was odd that I just complied so easily to such a demand from him. But the sleepiness had never really left me during the whole thing and then I fell asleep almost immediately afterward. So I didn’t really think that much about it at the time. 

As I dressed in the sweatpants I borrowed from Jake, I thought about if it meant something, but I reached the conclusion that I didn’t think it did.

We went down to the gym in silence, I didn’t figure out if it was because he was pissed or just tired before we split up. As the last few days, I took the treadmill and Jake went to a part of the room with some machines I didn’t even know what did. I had gotten used to the strain the running did to my rib that I barely noticed it anymore. 

I stretched out, then returned to the room where I took a shower. In there, I decided to shave as I was probably going to get a pelvic exam at the appointment. 

As I finished up and went back to the room, Jake quickly emptied the bowl with his breakfast and went to the bathroom after me. I didn’t know if he had eaten while I was in the shower because I was too slow or if he wanted to avoid me. To me, the atmosphere between us felt a little weird today. I couldn’t describe how it was weird, it just was, or that was what it felt like to me. With a shrug, I started making coffee and poured my breakfast. 

 

Halfway to the health center, I decided to break the silence that got more uncomfortable for every second that passed. “I called Kevin and Tina yesterday to hear if those insurances were still valid, they weren’t. But from what I’ve read so far, we should expect it to cost around $1,500.” I only looked at him as long as necessary, but from the very few gazes, I noticed he had clenched his jaw.

“Okay.” He simply said in a cool tone and clearly did everything he could to avoid looking in my direction. 

“Are you mad at me?” I asked a few moments later. I was tired of guessing whether or not I was the reason for his grumpiness. 

“Yes.” This time, he shortly looked at me, his eyes underlined his simple word that was said in the same cool tone as before. 

“Why?” I asked with a frown. What did I do? And if I remember correctly, he wasn’t pissed at me last night when he woke me up. Or did he just act like that because he wanted sex? 

“Do you really wanna get into this now?” He asked annoyed in a too harsh tone as we parked in front of the health center. He pulled the handbrake much harder than necessary while staring contemptuously at me. 

I looked at the clock, it was 2:56 p.m. we didn’t have time for this now. With a sigh, I opened the door and got out.


	13. His side of things

What was that? 

I moved closer to the mirror. 

Oh, yeah. Bite mark. It was slightly odd to see it on myself for a change. I didn’t know why I had asked her to do that. It was just a sudden impulse. 

Well, at least she doesn’t bite as hard as I do. The mark was red, but already fading. I also noticed that the redness on my throat from when I scrubbed so hard was practically gone.

 

The more awake I became, the more I became aware of the fact that it was today we had that appointment. Or it was Val’s appointment, physically. But I was as much a part of this as she was. 

Her decision didn’t really bother me, or it did, I couldn’t get that picture of the little hazel-eyed redheaded girl out of my head. 

But that isn’t the point. 

What bothers me, is that she just single-handedly dictated what should happen without even including me or take my opinion or feelings into account. The more I thought about it, the more it irritated me until I was directly angry with her. It probably also had something to do with the new demons lurking at the edges of my consciousness. But the appointment just appeared like a big neon sign to me that said, ‘only my opinion matters, not yours.’ That was basically it, the thing that triggered me. 

This isn’t a dictatorship, this is a relationship. And in a relationship, there are two people. Me and her. We’re two in this. 

Perhaps I should watch out for thinking ‘dictator’ too much. I would never call her that to her face, but who knows what the black monster or the demons might do. I probably need to find a synonym for it. At the top of my head, the first synonym I could think of was ‘Hitler,’ but that’s just worse. 

When I was done training I had come up with ‘autocrat,’ it wasn’t as bad as ‘dictator.’ 

 

Reaching the parking lot saved me. We didn’t have more time to talk unless she wanted to be late and I doubted that. So instead, I asked, “Do you really wanna get into this now?” As I had hoped, she just got out of the car without saying a word. 

Now, she knew I was pissed at her, but at least I didn’t have to try to hide it. In the waiting room, the heel of her boot tapped endlessly against the floor as she bounced her right leg. Several times, I was close to putting my hand on her knee to get her to stop. You’re even making me nervous. 

Finally, someone called her name, and she led us to an examination room where she started asking Val all sorts of questions about birth control and her period after she had peed in a cup; to confirm that she was pregnant. But the stick the doctor used looked almost exactly like the one Val took at home, so it wasn’t a surprise when the doctor confirmed that she was pregnant. 

Phew, this place isn’t so bad. The waiting room wasn’t much hospital-like, and this room isn’t much either, but still enough to make a few images and noises flicker in the corner of my consciousness. 

I focused on what was different. It’s missing the beds – well, there was one examination table, but that wasn’t the same. And all the wires and tubes were also missing. There were instruments here too, but my eyes wouldn’t let go of an instrument that, to me, most of all resembled a dildo. So it pretty much distracted me from what was going on in my head, and all the other instruments as well, actually. 

Or maybe I’m just a perv. 

No, definitely dildo. 

My attention got torn away from the weird instrument for a second when Val said her last period was in February. Doesn’t that come like once a month? And we were in May now. I briefly wondered why she didn’t take a pregnancy test before but decided it didn’t matter as images began flickering before my inner eye. 

Wolves. Water. Dragon. Fire. Val’s screams. Having to hold her down. Finding Sinanima. Hospital…

Now, I on purpose stared intensely at the instrument. But shortly after, it was time for the ‘undercarriage check,’ she was definitely gonna use the instrument, so I better not gawk. 

The doctor asked Val if she wanted me to leave the room during the exam. The first thing I thought was, what was the problem? I have already seen all of her. But couldn’t help but get a little satisfied when Val said I could stay. So when she laid down on the table, I held her hand. 

‘Speculum,’ so that was what it was called. I didn’t know what the right ‘etiquette’ during such visits were, so just to be safe, I didn’t look at Val or Dr. A-something, not that I did look at Val prior to this. 

When the doctor asked about STDs and Val had to admit she has had chlamydia, she stared straight at the ceiling and her cheeks turned slightly red. 

Not that I didn’t know that. She had told dad, who had told me but made me promise not to mention it or tease her with it. 

Why can I remember random shit like that? Probably because it just got mentioned, I thought of it. 

Okay, now she pulled out a real dildo, what the hell was this clinic? Health clinic during the day – hooker-service during the night and weekends or what? 

Okay, so that’s the ultrasound. I thought you put them on the belly? Apparently not, perhaps if I had paid more attention to what they were talking about I might know. But I couldn’t come with any usable knowledge about Val’s bottom-life-cycles, and I wouldn’t have much need for knowing any of this in the future. 

The doctor turned on the black and white screen. To me, it just looked like blurs and undefinable shapes. I didn’t know what was what. 

“You see that dot right there?” Dr. A pointed at a little gray dot with her gloved hand. “That’s the embryo. Hello, you.” She tickled the dot on the screen with one finger. 

It was even more enchanting than the image of the little hazel-eyed redheaded girl. That was just imaginary, this was real. That’s my baby. That’s our baby. Our little baby-dot. 

How can she not want that?

“It’s still too early to detect a heartbeat, but everything looks fine.” Dr. A told us with a smile. 

Everything looks fine.

By measuring something on the baby-dot, Dr. A said that Val was ten weeks and four days pregnant. 

Wow, they’re pretty accurate. Wonder if they can tell you what time it happened?

Ten weeks and four days. 

29th November. That would be the due date. 

“Do you want a picture?” Dr. A asked.

“Yes.” I involuntarily answered. My eyes flickered from the screen to the doctor and back again. I heard Val saying no, that’s probably why Dr. A looked confused, but I didn’t care. She printed the picture and held it forward, not really addressed to any of us, but just in between us. I quickly took it and without thinking about it, I put it in my wallet.


	14. Chapter 14

The receptionist confirmed that I had an appointment with Dr. Avery at 3 p.m. She kindly told us to take a seat in the waiting area. We sat next to each other, but Jake looked anywhere else but me.

Only a few minutes later, a female voice called, “Valery Moore?” in the waiting room. 

“Yes, that’s me,” I said as I stood up, Jake followed closely behind me. The doctor introduced herself as Dr. Janine Avery. She was in her late thirties, her light red hair was captured in a neat braid, but a few strands of hair had escaped the braid and framed her heart-shaped face with the green eyes. Her hair was several nuances lighter and closer to orange than red compared to mine. 

We both quickly shook hands before she led us to an examination room. I had only sat down for two seconds before she handed me a cup and asked me to go to the bathroom and pee in it. On the back of the door to the small bathroom, there was a poster with instructions on how to pee correctly in the cup. Turned out, I had to sit reverse on the toilet to do it – according to the poster. Anyway, after a few minutes, I returned to the room with a filled cup, though I felt kind of awkward when I handed the plastic cup with pee to the doctor. 

She dipped a stick into it, explained it was a pregnancy test much like the one you can buy to use at home. After a few minutes, she confirmed that it was positive. 

“When was the last time you had unprotected sex?” Dr. Avery asked with her fingers ready on the computer. 

“Um, I’m on the pill, but I might have messed them up,” I admitted, I felt my cheeks burn slightly and looked down. I felt Jake’s eyes on me but kept my gaze either on the floor or at Dr. Avery.

“That happens,” She nodded understandingly and then continued, “When was the first day of your last period?” Her tone was kind and her face professional, there was no trace of condemnation at all. 

“I’m pretty sure it was on the 22nd of February.” But my tone suggested I wasn’t completely sure. 

Dr. Avery nodded thoughtfully while typing something into the computer. “I’m going to make a pelvic exam on you to determine how far along you are.”

“Okay.” I simply said. I had foreseen this but still felt slightly uncomfortable. It had been many years since I had a pelvic exam, but at least it was a female doctor. 

She asked me if I wanted Jake to leave during the exam, but I told her it was fine with me if he wanted to stay. So far, he had remained completely passive since the car. The doctor instructed me to remove my skirt and underwear and then provided me with a cover as I laid on my back on the crackly paper that covered the brown bed at the left side of the room, and relaxed with my feet in the stirrups. During all this, she asked about my menstrual history, including what methods of birth controls I used, the length and regularity of my menstrual periods, and the severity of my premenstrual symptoms. I also told her I hadn’t noticed my period was delayed because of a smaller car crash. 

For a short moment, as she sat down on a chair between my legs, I felt extremely exposed, but then reminded myself that Dr. Avery was a professional. Jake sat next to me and took my hand, but still wouldn’t look me in the eyes. 

“Slide down to the end of the table, please.” Dr. Avery instructed. I scooted farther down and closed my eyes as I focused on relaxing. 

“I’m going to insert the speculum now.” She informed a few seconds before I felt the cold metal. She asked me if I have had any previous pregnancies including miscarriages and abortions, my answer was, of course, no to all that. Thereafter, she asked if I have had any STDs, I had to admit that I have had chlamydia close to five years ago. I didn’t see Jake’s reaction as I just stared at the ceiling. 

“I’m just gonna do a pap smear on you, and then we’ll do an ultrasound, I suggest that we do a transvaginal ultrasound to get the best image at this early state, okay?” Dr. Avery told me. 

“Okay,” I confirmed. The pap smear was painless, I could feel her poke around or whatever she was doing down there, but it didn’t hurt at all. She explained what a transvaginal ultrasound was, instead of a normal ultrasound where you placed that thing on the lower abdomen she was going to do the ultrasound from my vagina with a stick-thingy. Gently, she inserted it, it was a bit cold and then she turned on the black and white screen and turned it so we all could watch it. To me, it didn’t make any sense until Dr. Avery a little too enthusiastically pointed out a tiny dot that apparently was the fetus. I felt Jake squeezing my hand, and I involuntarily looked at him, he wasn’t looking at me, but at the screen. If you didn’t know him you wouldn’t have noticed it, but I did know him, and I noticed his eyes were marginally bigger, making his eyes appear more greenish, and his mouth was hanging slightly open. It had a lot of resemblance to the face he had given me when I first told him I was pregnant, expectant and optimistic. 

“It’s still too early to detect a heartbeat, but everything looks fine.” She sent us what was probably supposed to be a calming smile. 

I held back a scoff, I felt weirdly disconnected with the thing on the screen. Like it wasn’t even my uterus we were looking at, it could just as well had been a movie. To me, it was just a meaningless dot. I turned my attention to Dr. Avery. She calculated that I was ‘ten+four’ or something like that, meaning that I was ten weeks and four days pregnant. I think she measured the head of the fetus, but I wasn’t sure, as I didn’t pay attention to it. 

“Do you want a picture?” She asked. 

“No.” I immediately said, but it drowned in Jake’s slightly louder, “Yes.”

Dr. Avery looked perplexed at us both, then printed the sonogram and held it out between us so one of us could take it.

I sent Jake a burning glare as he took it and with one hand pulled out his wallet and put it in one of the pockets. His other hand was still holding mine. 

Why bother? We were getting rid of it anyway. Why have this reminder to taunt us? But I wouldn’t make a scene in here, especially not half-naked.

Dr. Avery finished the exam, and when I was sitting straight up with the cover over me, she asked, “Do you want to keep it or terminate the pregnancy?” 

“I want an abortion,” I stated in a toneless voice. Jake had withdrawn his hand from mine as she asked the question. 

“Okay.” Dr. Avery said with a professional smile, there was no judgment to trace in her face at all while she looked at the computer screen. “I’m sorry, but we’re completely booked the next few days, some of my colleagues are sick, so we’re running a tight schedule at the moment, but I can offer you an in-clinic abortion at 11 a.m. May 15th?” She looked askingly up at us. 

“We’ll take it,” I said straight away. 

After that, she explained how the in-clinic abortion would be performed, what would happen, what I should expect, and everything else considering it. Basically, we would arrive, I would get sedated during the procedure that took around half an hour, then I should stay for observation for a couple of hours, and then I could go home, but I had to have someone drive me. 

After saying goodbye to Dr. Avery, we returned to the reception where I asked if I could pay upfront or if I had to wait until the procedure was done. Turned out they would rather have me pay afterward if there should emerge some complications, but the receptionist informed me that there was a low chance of complications, of course, and that I should expect it to cost around $1.100.

“Why did you take the sonogram?” I asked Jake when we were in the car. He hadn’t really said anything during the whole visit there. 

“I don’t know.” He shrugged, but his tone and pose clearly stated that that wasn’t the real answer. 

“Right. Suppose you won’t tell why you’re suddenly mad at me either.” I muttered annoyed. 

“You really wanna get into this now?” He snapped, and for the first time today, he looked directly at me for several seconds with his dark eyes and clenched jaw. 

“Yeah, I think I do.” I threw back in the same harsh tone he used and headstrongly met his gaze. I was tired of his attitude and his passive aggressiveness. 

“Okay, first of all, you do whatever the fuck you want without caring what I think, you’re like an uncompromising autocrat!” He spluttered. 

“What?” I exclaimed appalled. His statement caught me completely off guard. 

“You heard me! Second of all, I took the sonogram because you can’t tell me not to!” He spat the words in my face. 

I was stunned, to say the least. Where did all this come from? Me, an uncompromising autocrat? There was nothing to compromise about in this situation. And I had a crystal-clear feeling his excuse for taking the sonogram was a cover-up for his real reason to take it. The reason none of us had spoken out loud to each other, that he wanted this though it was completely incompatible with our lives. 

You know what? I didn’t have to put up with this crap. Or I just didn’t want to handle it right now, I just wanted some peace and quiet as enough things were swirling in my head concerning the abortion. He obviously felt the need to antagonize me, but I wouldn’t submit to it like I once did, I had gotten braver since then. “Stop the car,” I demanded. His expression changed from pissed to like he thought I wasn’t in my right mind. 

“Stop the car, Jake.” I sneered. His face became more confused than it was before, but he didn’t respond to my demand. 

With a hand on the handle, I yelled, “Stop the fucking car, or I’m jumping!” 

“Jesus Christ, Valery.” He grumbled as he pulled the car to the side of the road and then hit the brakes so hard my seatbelt tightened around me. I glared at him as I tried to get my seatbelt off, but had to look down to unbuckle it. Then I threw it to the side and kicked out the car door so hard, I nearly got it right back in my face if I hadn’t already been halfway out and could catch it with my hands. I slammed it behind me and started walking. 

I heard the other car door open behind me and then quick steps that tried to follow mine. “What are you doing?” He inquired. “Come back here!” He added when I only walked faster without answering. 

“No!” If he wanted to get rid of the autocrat, I was going to give it to him, he could drive back to the hotel by himself. I didn’t have to listen to his crap, his childish and passive-aggressive comments. At this moment, I actually preferred the old angry Jake, because at least I knew where I had him. This new one with the passive aggressiveness, I have to guess what’s wrong, moody-I-feel-so-wronged-Jake was starting to piss me off. 

“Val, hold on–” 

“No!” I interrupted, but I barely got the word out before he had reached me, grabbed my arm, and spun me around to face him. “Go away! I can’t stand the sight of you right now! Go back to the car!” I hissed before jerking my arm out of his grip and continued walking. 

“Are you planning on walking to the hotel? That’s like five miles.” He asked half annoyed and, all of a sudden, half amused. 

“Damn straight!” I yelled without turning around. I actually think the walk would be good for my mental health and my blood pressure right now.

“Then I’m walking with you.” He proclaimed in a definitive tone. 

No fucking way. “And leave the car here?” I stopped to turn around and look at him, he was much closer than what I had expected. Taking a step back, I gestured towards the car. 

“Yes.” His tone had a challenging edge as he crossed his arms. 

“No! Get the car back to the hotel. I’m walking.” I stubbornly stood my ground and pronounced every syllable clearly to be sure he got the fucking point. 

“I’m walking with you.” He just as stubbornly persisted. 

What was the point in that? Was he on purpose doing the exact opposite of what I said lately? He was behaving like a child right now, I needed some space from him, but instead of accepting it, he just kept following in my heels like an annoying puppy. 

“No! Go back to the fucking car!” I furiously pushed out through my teeth as I gave him a push in the direction of the car. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, but other than that I didn’t move him. He just continued to stand there with his arms crossed and glared at me though I didn’t think he looked more pissed than me, at the moment. But he wouldn’t give in, I could see it. In frustration, I gave him an open palm slap on his arm where I had just pushed him before I started walking back to the car. But after three steps, I changed my mind, turned on my heels, and slapped him on his other arm for every syllable of, “You’re an asshole!” Before I stomped back to the car and got in with crossed arms. 

A few seconds, later Jake got in the driver’s seat. Before he started driving again, he locked the doors.

“You think that’s gonna keep me in?” I snapped and demonstrating unlocked it again, not that I had any intention of jumping out of the car, but still. What did he think I was? A misbehaved child? 

With narrowed eyes, he stared at me as he pushed the lock pin down to lock the doors again. I pulled the lock pin up to unlock it just as quickly. My fingers had barely left it before he pushed it down again. 

“Stop it!” I snapped and slapped his arm. 

“Nope.” He mocked in the most provocative and scornful tone. 

“You are just doing this to piss me off!” I exclaimed heatedly. 

“No.” He claimed firmly. 

“Yes, you are, right now you’re doing everything you possibly can to piss me off by doing the exact opposite of everything I fucking say!” I spluttered with repressed frustration. 

“You say a lot of things lately, what about what I say?” He retorted. 

I got a comic flashback to the night we agreed that we were a couple, he had used almost the same wording ‘ _what about what I say?_ ’

Now, I let the frustration run unbridled with a big gesture and a heavy snort saying, “God!”

“No, seriously, what about what I say? Does it even matter to you?” His tone was on the verge of yelling now and quite insisting.

“Of course it matters!” I irritated burst out like it was obvious. 

“Then start acting like it!” He immediately yelled back. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at him. We had arrived at the hotel, and people were already staring as they could hear our raised voices. 

“Can we finish this conversation in our room?” I asked probably too harshly with my hand on the handle. 

“Fine!” He pushed out through his clenched teeth. We both got out of the car. Apparently, Jake thought I walked too slowly because when we were halfway to the entrance, he put his hand on the middle of my back and pushed me forward. 

Jesus Christ, Jake. I felt the need to say something like ‘I can walk perfectly fine by myself,’ but held it in as I was pretty sure it would just ignite the fight between us. 

When Jake opened the door to our room, I got a hard push that made me stumble two steps into the room. He slammed the door behind him, turned towards me with his finger pointing at me like he was going to lecture me. “If you say it matters then why do I feel like you’re walking all over me?” He thundered. In this small room with the dim lighting caused by the just as small windows, his eyes seemed even darker than they had in the car. 

“I’m not–”

“Yes, you are!” He yelled in my face. 

“You _have_ to face the realities here!” I tried again. 

“I am!”

“No, you’re not!” I yelled back with the full capacity of my lungs, which seemed to make him back off for a few seconds. Though he clenched his jaw so hard I was afraid he would break a tooth and sent me the darkest and most furious scowl he had done in what felt like ages. He had just opened his mouth in what looked like a sneer when I quickly interrupted him, “Stop.” I held my hands up in front of me to underline my word and then sighed. “This, um… it’s… we aren’t getting anywhere with this. I’m gonna take a walk.” I told him in a resigned tone, my eyes dropped to the floor. I was still wearing my boots and jacket, so I headed directly for the door. 

“Again? But, why?” He stammered perplexed though the hard edge to his tone was still there.   
I ignored his questions and simply said, “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” I promised in a low voice before I closed the door without looking at him. When I stood in the hall, I exhaled deeply, blinked the moisture that was starting to gather in the corner of my eyes away, and found the elevator.


	15. His side of things

“If you say it matters then why do I feel like you’re walking all over me?” I confronted her. 

“I’m not–”

“Yes, you are!” Otherwise, I wouldn’t say you were, genius! 

“You _have_ to face the realities here!” She retorted.

What does that have to do with this current topic? Now you’re out on a sidetrack – _again_ – 

“I am!”

“No, you’re not!” She yelled so loud, I was sure the neighbors heard her. The stubbornness just shone out of her every feature. 

She’s impossible to talk with. Do problems with communicating ring a bell, little missy? Freaking church bells! I was about to try to get back to the current topic – we’re two in this, two individuals that have to make this kind of decisions _together_. But that’s pretty hard when one part just does as she feels like regarding everything, no matter who she stomps on. 

“Stop.” She ordered with her hands up just as I opened my mouth. With a sigh, she continued, “This, um… it’s… we aren’t getting anywhere with this. I’m gonna take a walk.” She scratched her hair with downcast eyes before she turned around and opened the door. 

Again? Seriously? 

“Again? But, why?” I asked confused and pissed off that she wanna run off like that. What does that solve? 

“I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” She said quietly and then closed the door. 

What–? Why–? 

I let my hands run through my hair before I kicked off my boots. What is going on with her? Is it hormones or what the fuck? Why is running away suddenly the answer to everything? It’s near goddamned impossible to get a straight answer or just a proper answer out of her. 

Or is this just a method to shut me up? Shut me up so she can get her will? 

Well, this time, she isn’t getting off that easy. When she comes back, I’m gonna pick up right where we left. End of discussion. 

Though I had decided what to do now, this time, she wasn’t gonna throw me off balance, I was still fuming. Everything was a stir inside me, and I couldn’t get it to calm down. I tried to push it aside, but right now, it was too strong. 

I sat down on the chair and went through our fight to see if I would get some epiphany on how to get a straight answer out of her. 

 

Nothing came to me. But at least I didn’t feel as restless now as before. It wasn’t quiet inside me, it was more like I was in the eye of the hurricane at the moment. I just have to stay that way until she comes back. 

Now that everything was momentarily calm, I remembered the sonogram. I took the picture out of my wallet and looked at our baby-dot. I hadn’t noticed until now that in the upper left corner was written _Moore, Valery_ with the name of the clinic under it. At the upper right corner were the date and time. Well, at least I didn’t have to write it on the back then. It was documented down to the second it was taken. 

The longer I looked at the sonogram, the more glumly I felt. The thought of the little hazel-eyed redheaded girl was tempting, and it kept lingering before my inner eye, but the thought of our little baby-dot was unbelievably appealing. It was printed into my eyes, and I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t know why. Perhaps it was only because it was Val.


	16. Chapter 16

Walking haphazardly around for almost forty minutes, I had calmed down, and at that moment, I passed a park and decided to find a place to sit. There were a few people taking walks like me, probably not for the same reason as me, I bet. But I found a bench aside from the rest where I could be in peace surrounded by a few trees and a tiny creek that was two feet wide tops. Now that I sat down and relaxed, the last tension from the fight left my body making my shoulders slump. With bowed head, I closed my eyes and took some deep breaths. When I opened them again, I was staring directly down at my stomach, and the annoyance grew in me. I looked fat when I sat like this. My fingers pressed different places on my lower abdomen until I felt something hard. I felt around a little more, a slight roundness, not just squishy fat. It felt like an orange or something close to that size. 

How did I not feel that before now? I was so goddamn oblivious. And stupid. And naive. I was a freaking moron. 

“You’re not welcome,” I muttered defiantly to my stomach I was scowling at and crossed my arms. “You’re not fucking welcome, you little terrorist. Homewrecker. Or should I say life-wrecker? I didn’t ask for you. It’s my body, goddammit, and you’re not fucking welcome. You little shit.” I continued, looked around after I said it, but there was no one near me right now. If someone heard that, they would probably think I was crazy. Well, maybe I was, and if I wasn’t already, I was sure Jake would soon drive me crazy. 

“You little shit.” I hissed again to my stomach. 

_Is it a boy or a girl?_

I didn’t care. I just wanted to get rid of it. 

_Will it have Jake’s hazel eyes or your green ones?_

Stop it. 

_Blonde or red hair? Or reddish-blonde with curls like your mom?_

I said stop it, goddammit! 

Maybe I would have felt something if I had heard a heartbeat when Dr. Avery did the ultrasound. 

_You mean, feel more?_

No, this was a hostile takeover of my body, and I didn’t condone it in any way. 

Or maybe I did a little… 

For the next couple of minutes, I sat and condemned my birth control, myself for not taking them properly or at least had made him wear a condom when I knew I had missed the first one, then two. Next on the list, was my own obliviousness, and at last, Jake’s apparent super-sperm. I had before forgotten a few of the pills and had sex and nothing never happened, I guessed I just didn’t get pregnant that easily until Jake came along. 

 

For a long time, I tried to get rid of my frustration, but I didn’t fully succeed. I looked at my phone with the broken screen and saw it was probably time for me to get back, we soon had to work. 

I found my way back to the motel close to fifteen minutes faster than when I walked to the park. Close to a minute, I stood in front of the door to our room before I opened it. 

“Did you get some ‘air’?” Jake snapped scornfully before I had even closed the door behind me. He was sitting at the table with the laptop in front of him. 

Okay, so this was how it was going to be. I had hoped we could talk civilized, but that didn’t seem to be the case. 

“Yeah,” I said firmly but calmly as I closed the door behind me. His dark gaze laid on me like he was waiting for my next move. It was a long time since he had looked at me that way and I felt how I grew more and more uncomfortable under his stare. 

“So what now? Are we gonna pick up where we left off before you ran away?” He sneered as he turned the chair around to face me. 

“I didn’t run away, I said I would be back.” I defended myself. 

“Right,” He scoffed. 

“Are you seriously gonna be like that?” I asked bluntly. 

“Are _you_ seriously gonna be like this?” He threw back with a raised eyebrow and a mocking tone. 

I sighed, I felt like we had hit a dead end with this fight and I didn’t want to end up screaming at each other. So I just caved in, “Fine, then I think we should just get to work. We can’t afford to miss a night.” I said tonelessly. 

“Fine.” He spat back and nearly knocked over the chair when he got up to change. 

 

It was getting too dangerous to stay at our hotel, so we had to find another, which was actually what Jake had done on the laptop while I had been out. And so far, there hadn’t been any trace of vampires at our hotel or its surroundings. The ride over there was the most silent and acerbic for what felt like ages. I had forgotten how the anger and disapprove could almost roll off him in ice-cold waves. 

As soon as we went in, we kept our distance to each other. During the night, I became more and more distracted. The thoughts of our fight started to form a knot in my stomach, I wish we could just sort things out. But every time I locked gazes with Jake, I by habit checked up on regularly, he very demonstrating turned away from me and ignored me. 

Childish, I thought. 

The few times I handed him the money I had gotten my hands on, he didn’t acknowledge my presence, only ripping the money out of my hands and walked away. 

 

My eyes quickly ran through the room trying to spot Jake somewhere, it had been some time since I had seen him last time. When I had discretely looked around for him for the third time with a couple of minutes apart, I started to scour the room more thoroughly. I got a glimpse of a gray suit and blonde hair slipping through a door that said _Personnal Only_. I was almost positive it was him, I could recognize his figure and pose. 

A minute later, I slipped unnoticed through the same doors. The lightning in the empty hall was dim, the next room I entered contained poker tables, different kinds of slot machines, some still in wrapping, some so used up I wondered absently why they hadn’t thrown them out. At the end of the room, there were two doors and a stairwell to what must be the basement of the building, neither the doors nor stairs were to be seen before I got past all the crap in here. 

Where did he go? And why was he back here? Did he see something? And if he did, why didn’t he come to get me? 

My head whipped to the left as I suddenly heard a sound coming from down the stairs, I quickly, but silently snuck down one step at a time. At the bottom, there was a set of double doors to the left. A small stripe of light seeped out through the crack where the doors met. It was the only light here as the lamps along the stairway were shattered, meaning I could undiscovered sneak closer and get a peek. My right hand was hovering above the sheath of my knife. 

Just as I peeked through the crack, heavy turmoil came from the other side, definitely, someone fighting. I observed the surroundings for a second before I got a glimpse of Jake getting one or two blows to his ribs from another guy. Jake’s gun was on the floor in the middle between them and me. I burst through the doors, skidded over the concrete floor on my knees, and grabbed the gun, but Jake’s attacker was observant and just as fast. The second I got up and took aim, he moved behind Jake. He had trapped his arms, his elbows were above his head, his hands behind it. He struggled to get free but it was useless, he could hardly breathe after the beating, and the fierce grip from behind did not make it easier. I could see Jake was in a great deal of pain. Now I could see, without a doubt, that the mystical attacker was a vampire, and that he was almost as big as Jake. The only thing I noticed besides his size, black eyes, and fangs, was his thickset face and crew-cut.

“Drop the gun!” He yelled and gave Jake a yank that made him groan out in pain and caused his breathing to become even more strained. 

My mind worked overtime to think of something. A distraction, anything. I opened my right hand and let the gun fall down on the floor with a loud thud that echoed in the half-empty room while I raised my arms, signaling surrender. 

“Kick it away!” He ordered. I gave the gun a kick with my right foot, making it slide three yards away. 

A plan formed in my head, but there were so many things that could go wrong. But I just couldn’t think of anything else, and I had to try. 

As quickly as I could, I grabbed the knife from its sheath, cut my palm when I in one motion let my hand slide over the blade to grab the tip, and threw it. Aiming for the vampire's face, hoping it would buy Jake a couple of seconds to get loose. 

The time from the knife left my fingers until it hit something felt like an eternity. 

_Please don’t hit Jake, please don’t hit Jake, please don’t hit Jake!_ I begged silently. My aim with my knife wasn’t as good compared to my shooting. Finally, it had swirled through the air and hit the vampire’s cheek, but first, it cut through the sleeve of Jake’s upper arm and blood immediately oozed from the wound. 

I had aimed for the vamps eye, but at least I didn’t kill Jake. He used the momentary break in the vamps concentration to twist his arms free and give him an elbow in the face, hitting the knife, making it go deeper into the skin. The sheer power of this painful blow brought the vampire to the ground. But that was all Jake had in him, his legs gave in under him, and he fell to the floor.

Before I was across the room, the vamp had given Jake another solid kick in his chest, he knew it was a weak spot now. While the bastard was trying to stand up, I used the pause to charge, hammering my knee into the vampire’s face, making his head bang into the wall. 

A moment after my brutal attack, his leg hit my ankles and swept me off my feet. My back hit the concrete floor, knocking the wind out of me, I felt my skin being scraped off my elbows, and I heard the sound of my dress being ripped. It surprised me that he could get over my attack so quickly.

He was immediately over me, his hands reaching for my throat. The knife was gone from his cheek causing a big chunk of meat to flap, and thick black fluid poured down on me. He was too big, I couldn’t fight him off me, his big hairy hands found their way through my struggling and punches, and closed around my throat with so much strength, I heard my neck make a cracking sound. With a twist, I got my stilettoes on his chest and stomach, and with a heave, I got him kicked away, thanks to my pointy heels. I rolled to the side coughing raspingly, gasping for air, the tears streaked down my face, and I felt like I was about to throw up. Pulling myself together, I threw myself into him, knocking the vamp down on his back again. When he tried to retaliate, I gave his nose a solid punch that sent him right back down, which bought me enough time to get my right knee to his throat and put all my weight down on him. 

One of his hands clutched onto a fistful of my hair at my shoulder and tried to pull me backward away from him. Just as I lost balance and keeled backward, I kicked my left stiletto heel into the wound on his cheek. He let go of my hair as both his hands flew to his face and I fell to my back. The force knocked the stiletto off my foot. 

This time, I was faster than him, got back on top of him again with my knee to his throat and punched him over and over in his face, hoping he would momentarily be incapacitated, giving me a chance to get a weapon. 

When his hands stopped fighting me and only tried to protect his face, my head whipped around to locate a weapon. 

Knife, gun, knife, anything! Where the fuck was it? I gave him a last hard punch that radiated throughout my entire arm before I flung myself to the left, my hands reaching for the handle of the knife I had spotted. A yank in my leg pulled me out of reach. I spun to my back, kicked him in the stomach again, and launched myself forward. My fingers closed around the handle just as two hands grabbed around my thighs and pulled me back. I swung my right hand with the knife back as hard as I could, hitting him in the temple with the handle, he rolled to his side. Quickly, I got on my knees, and with both hands around the knife and with all my strength behind it, I stabbed his heart. The knife made a screeching sound as it cut through him and impacted with the concrete floor. Seconds after, he turned to dust around the blade. 

Jake!

He was on his stomach, completely balled up in pain, I could see that he still struggled to breathe, now much worse than when I jumped the vamp, it was nothing but small outbursts and groans that couldn’t provide enough oxygen to him. I grabbed his shoulder and tried turning him, but he almost cramped when I pulled, he was still conscious. 

“I’m sorry.” I groaned as I, with all my strength, grabbed his shoulder and with a haul, got him turned to his back, now he tried to gasp, but he wasn’t breathing. He only shortly looked at me as I turned him, he probably hadn’t even registered that it was me, but now he knew. 

Grabbing his jacket and shirt by his shoulder, I. with a heave, got him to sit up against the wall. 

_Please don’t have a collapsed lung, please don’t have a collapsed lung._ I begged silently but desperately.

I ripped his shirt open, the buttons flew to all sides and quickly examined him. He still uselessly gasped. There was a big bruise on the right side of his chest. 

Okay, think fast. Think fast. His lips were getting a bluish color. 

Hoping his small futile gasps were enough for me to hear if the lung was collapsed, I pressed my ear to his left side. Yes, I could hear his gasps both from the outside and inside, then I pressed my ear to the left side. 

Yes! Yes, also gasps from both outside and inside there. No collapsed lung, then it must be the blow to his ribs that made his chest cramp. 

My hands grabbed his face by his cheeks, forcing him to look up at me. “Jake, breathe! Your lung isn’t collapsed, you can do it. Breathe!” I yelled. ”Breathe! Breathe!” I begged and tried to breathe with him, but it was no use. Sweat was breaking out on his forehead.

“Goddammit Jake, breathe!” I yelled and slapped him with my right hand, he produced a small cough and got some air sucked in, but it wasn’t enough. My left hand grabbed his chin, pushed his head back, my right closed his nose, I put my lips over his, and forced air into his lungs. His right hand clutched on to the shreds of my dress. I removed my lips from his, sucked in a deep breath, and pushed another breath into his lungs. 

There was no difference at the first five breaths I forced into his lungs, but then it sounded like it helped. 

Yes, it did help. 

As he slowly got more and more air, his body started to relax and his grip in my dress loosened. I think it was to say it was better. 

I think I blew air into his lungs close to thirty times before I noticed he panted heavily, but steadily when I was sucking in a new breath. He nodded as we locked gazes, his hand at my side gave me one stroke before it fell to the floor. Slowly, I released his face from my grip as he seemed slightly unsteady. I kept watching him to make sure his breathing was even for a few more moments before I sat next to him and leaned against the wall with a cough. My lungs hurt, I was dizzy, my throat hurt. Actually, everything hurt right now. But we got the vamp though he was a frisky one, and we were both still alive. 

Suddenly I got so… filled. It surprised me when the tears again streaked down my face. I was puzzled by my own reaction until it hit me; hormones. Stupid fucking hormones. Automatically, I put my right hand over my stomach. I didn’t think I took any hits there. As soon as I had thought that thought through, I thought what the hell did it matter? We were getting rid of it anyway. ”Crap.” I sniffed. 

My sniff made Jake look up. He took my hand and gave it a small squeeze. ”It’s okay,” He groaned in between his panting breath that sounded better and better. 

“I know,” I said sniveling. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, it was covered in blood and the black fluid. Ripping a piece of the dress off, I wiped my face the best I could while getting control over the tears and myself. Jake’s breathing was slowly beginning to return to normal, it still sounded strained, but it was much better.

“What a round, huh?” I said a minute after with a big sigh. I had gotten everything under control now. 

“Are you mad at me?” He leaned his head back against the wall and looked at me with a frown. 

“For what?” I asked confused. 

“Where do I start?” A smile pulled up in the corner of his mouth and out came a little chuckle. “Earlier, pursuing that vamp without getting you…” 

“No.” I was just as surprised by my answer as he was. “I’m just glad your lung wasn’t collapsed. Otherwise, I had to cut into you,” I told him relieved when it hit me what I would have been forced to do if it really had been a collapsed lung. 

“Me too.” He finally had air enough to breathe a sigh. “You’re right, I’m not back on track yet, and it was stupid going after him alone.” He admitted. 

“Thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say, it was rare he acknowledged that I was right when he had made such a fuss about it. 

“But if I was back on track, I could have taken him down.” He pointed out with a raised finger and what looked like a smirk. 

“Of course, you could.” I agreed in a snicker. 

 

Jake told me to look for a phone, as the vamp had been talking to someone that could possibly be another vampire when he followed him down here. After a few minutes of searching, I found it along with retrieving Jake’s gun, my knife, and my one stiletto that flew off. And of course, emptying the vampire’s wallet along with getting rid of the evidence. 

With Jake’s arm around my shoulder, I got him supported and found a backdoor out of the casino so we wouldn’t draw too much attention. He was heavy, and my knees shook, threatened to give in, but I managed to keep us both upright the whole time. When we got back to the car, I placed him on the passenger seat, he was in no condition to drive. 

Getting into our own hotel was slightly more difficult without getting noticed. I had to park the car, find a back entrance, and sneak into our room. 

Driving to the valet and then go through the front entrance wasn’t an option when we looked like this. Right now, I wished we had stayed at a motel without a valet and lobby instead. 

In our room, I quickly washed my face that was streaked with makeup, dirt, blood, and black fluid. Washing my hands too as they looked pretty much like my face. 

I threw the platinum dress and the stilettos directly in the trash. The dress was torn beyond recognition and filled with the black fluid like my shoes were. Deftly, I overlooked my body, assessing the injuries, but nothing major. I had scratches everywhere, a bluish shadow on my throat, but worst was my right hand. The knuckles were scratches pretty good and then there was the cut in my palm from when I had to throw it, though I didn’t need stitches. Quickly, I changed and got back down to the car. 

I brushed most of the dust and dirt off Jake, closed his jacket, there wasn’t much I could do about the shirt, there wasn’t a button left. We got through the valet, and all the way to our room with Jake’s arm around my shoulder, and the excuse that he was drunk, and had tripped, and I was the annoyed girlfriend who had just picked him up. 

In the room, I placed him on the bed, lying up against the headboard, and started undressing him. He helped a little, but he was exhausted and in pain. First, I took a look at the accidental cut I had given him on the inner side of his upper right arm. 

“Sorry for cutting you.” I apologized. 

“No worries. How bad is it?” 

It was hard to see, as right now he couldn’t really lift his arm over his head, so I had to hold it out from his body and try to twist it as much as I could without hurting him. “Um, looks like you’re gonna need two stitches.” 

 

Half an hour later, I had stitched him, cleaned him up, and taken an extra look at his bruised ribs. I decided to take a shower before I joined him in bed, I felt dirty and sticky, and my whole body ached. 

When I got out, I didn’t even bother finding a clean pair of panties and just got into bed naked. Jake had scooted down and was lying on his back, I was in doubt if he was already asleep as I had given him some painkillers, but when I had laid down under the covers and looked at him he was looking back at me. 

“Come here,” He whispered and waved me forward with his hand after a couple of seconds of looking at each other. I scooted closer, he held his left arm out, indicating he wanted me to lie with my head on his shoulder. Carefully, I cradled myself against his chest. He hooked his left arm around my waist and dragged me halfway up on his chest, so we were now face to face. 

“Don’t strain yourself!” I chided. 

“Shut up,” He smirked. “He only hit my right side.”

“But still,” I said with a raised eyebrow. 

He only answered with a smile. His right hand gently reached up and pushed a strand of damp hair behind my ear. As he caressed my cheek, his smile faded, “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you today.” He said quietly. 

“No worries,” I repeated his words from before with a smile that made the one on his lips return too. 

“Goodnight-kiss,” He whispered. 

I quickly became aware that he wasn’t able to lean closer, so I had to carefully ease myself closer without risking to hurting him until our lips could meet, and when they did, his right hand snuck to my neck to keep my lips sealed to his. The kiss was a lot less careful than I would have expected because of his current condition, but I embraced it. Maybe it was like that so we could put everything that happened today behind us. 

When he was sure, I wouldn’t remove my lips again, his right hand gently grabbed my ass, moved up my side, but then it changed course and snuck in between us and laid on my lower abdomen. 

I didn’t really like it, but to keep the peace, especially after today, I ignored it. Soon after, his lips left mine, and I snuggled close to his chest with my head on his shoulder. 

“I need you.” He whispered in the darkness. 

“I need you too,” I whispered back. _I love you._


	17. His side of things

It was like I had a ton pressing down on my chest and it just got heavier and heavier for every second. I could suck in a little air, but the pressure got bigger and bigger. Prohibiting my lungs from expanding. The little air I got down wasn’t enough. It was like I was breathing through a pillow. My lungs wouldn’t absorb the oxygen. For every gasp, there was less and less air. 

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe at all.

Someone pulled my shoulder. The movement made the pain worse, and now it felt like I had one and a half ton pressing on my chest. 

Then I got ripped to my back. If I had been able to, I was sure I would have screamed. For a moment, I was afraid that it was the vamp, but when I looked up, it was only Val looking down on me. She looked terrible. 

She grabbed my shoulders and pulled me up to sit against the wall. That didn’t help at all. 

The panic was really starting to rise in me. I couldn’t get my lungs to work no matter how much I gasped for air. It was like the inside of my chest cramped. I was starting to get dizzy, and my fingertips slowly became more and more numb. 

Val tore my shirt open and pressed her ear against my chest. It felt like she did that for a really long time. 

Come on, do something! I wanted to say, though my own mind was blank for ideas. 

She forced my head back making me look at her panicked face that was blurred to me. “Jake, breathe! Your lung isn’t collapsed, you can do it. Breathe!” She shouted. 

Goddammit, I’m trying! 

“Breathe! Breathe!” She demanded. 

“Goddammit Jake, breathe!” She shouted and slapped me. The hit caused me to suck a small mouthful air down my lungs, but it wasn’t enough. Besides that one mouthful, it again felt like my whole chest cavity was cramping and that my lungs were just balled up, completely useless. 

Then Val suddenly forced my head back, pinched my nose, put her lips over mine, and blew in a deep breath of air. 

It was good, it helped, but it was far from enough and I felt like I was on the verge of passing out. I grabbed on to her dress. 

Give me more. More, more… 

She turned her head to the side, took a deep breath and then her lips were over mine again. It felt like every breath came deeper and deeper like my lungs slowly got unfolded and expanded after being balled up in cramps. 

When she turned her head to the side to inhale a deep breath, I tried to suck in some air myself, I couldn’t at first, but slowly I could draw in more and more air until it resembled a normal breath. Strained, panting, but normal. 

I was still dizzy, my fingertips were still numb, and I was now utterly exhausted. Every muscle in my body ached, and the pain and tightness in my chest were worse than ever. 

When she looked at me again, I nodded. I would have said ‘you can stop now,’ but I didn’t have the air for that. She released her grip and slumped against the wall next to me after a few seconds with a stridor cough. 

”Crap.” She suddenly sniffed. 

I glanced at her and saw that tears were silently running down her dirty face. I took her hand, it was resting on her stomach, protecting it. ”It’s okay,” I said and squeezed her hand. 

I know, sweetie, I know. But everything is okay. It was scary for me too, but we’re okay. I wanted to say all that, but I kept it short to avoid talking too much right now. 

“I know.” She sniffed again and sighed as she wiped her tears away. 

My breathing slowly became better, but the pain and tightness in my chest remained. 

Goddammit, right back to square one. Maybe even worse actually. Or I just didn’t know because I was in the induced coma.


	18. Chapter 18

I woke by myself, but still felt groggy, and I had a headache. Snuggling deeper under the covers, I thought I could easily sleep for another hour until the queasiness suddenly arose in my throat and I had to rush to the bathroom. 

Fifteen minutes later, I took some painkillers with a glass of water. I stopped myself from reading the leaflet to see if I was allowed to take them while being pregnant. It didn’t matter anyway. 

For the first time, I glanced at Jake. He was still asleep, but at some point, during the night he had dragged himself up to lie halfway up against the headboard. Probably to ease the pain. 

Before I got dressed, I examined my body. All the scratches were superficial, a few bruises had come forward since yesterday, the one on my throat had gotten a purple nuance to it. The cut across my palm stung and I could feel it pound under my skin. 

I laid back down in bed with my book and read until Jake woke one and a half hour later. “Morning, sleeping beauty.”

“Morning,” He mumbled. 

“How’re you feeling?” 

“Like an elephant stomped on me.” He groaned as he pulled himself up to sit at the edge of the bed. He shortly went to the bathroom before he laid back down and turned on the TV. 

“A day off?” He suggested with a sarcastic smile. 

“Several days for you, I think,” I told him with raised eyebrows. He pretended to pout over my answer. 

 

“Do you wanna take a shower with me?” He asked a little later. 

“Sure.” I shrugged. Normally, he didn’t ask, it just happened. 

“I might get some trouble because of this.” He explained and pointed at the bruise on his ribs. 

In the bathroom where there was better lighting, I examined his injuries again. The bruise was deep red in the middle fading to bluish-purple at the edges and about the size of my hand. His stitches looked fine too. I got him to show me how high he was able to lift his arms. It was worse at the right side where the bruise was, the left side was affected too, but not as badly as his right. “How’re you feeling?”

“It’s not as bad as last time, but it’s already much better than yesterday. Half of the pain is gone.” He answered though I was sure he exaggerated a bit. 

Under the water, I helped him wash his upper body and hair, he complained about how old he felt because he needed help. The water made my wounds and scratches sting, especially the one on my palm. 

As I washed the shampoo out of his hair, his left hand stroked my side. He leaned closer and gently met my lips. His right hand laid on my hip as his left glided to my back and pushed my body to his. 

My arms fell from his hair to his shoulders. A small moan escaped me as our lips worked against each other. Then he turned me away from the water and gently pushed me against the cold tiles. His kisses got more eager, and when I parted my lips in another moan, his tongue immediately took advantage. One of my hands intertwined in his hair, keeping him close. His mouth moved down over my chin, kissed along my jawline, and continued down my neck. 

“Are you ready for this already?” I asked stunned as he pressed himself against me. 

He lifted his head to meet my eyes. “No,” He lightly shook his head. “But I’m ready for an old fashioned make out.” He whispered cockily against my lips. 

“I wouldn’t mind that either.” I moaned. 

“Thought so,” He smirked before he sealed his lips to mine. A couple of minutes later, he playfully nipped and bit my lower lip. Then he moved down, his teeth grazed my jawline, sending shivers throughout my body before his lips continued their path down to explore my neck all the way down to my collarbone. 

When another shiver coursed through my body, he turned the showerhead, so some of the water hit us, keeping us partially warm, but it wasn’t necessary. My shivers weren’t from cold but from his touch as he had now moved down to my breasts. His right hand just laid on my hip, but his left thoroughly kneaded my right breast as his lips and tongue played with my left nipple. I could feel they were more sensitive than usual but didn’t think more about it.

My hands roamed through his wet hair as my back arched from the tiles, pushing my breasts further into his touch as small moans spilled from my lips. Looking down on him to enjoy the sight, I noticed something. My nipples were just a shade darker, and not because of the stimulation they received. The areola too seemed a shade darker and… bigger?

Jake didn’t seem to notice either that or my frown as he moved up to my neck again, but I kept looking down at my breasts. Unbelievable how shortly that little terrorizer had been in me and already had it begun to transform my body. Good, we were getting rid of it soon. 

I let Jakes lips, tongue, and teeth playing with the skin of my neck, push my frosty thoughts aside. Soon, his lips covered mine again and made sure every other thought than him and his touch got banish from my mind. 

Now it was my turn. I pulled back, and with my cheek against his, I pushed his head to the side and started kissing his neck. Capturing his skin between my teeth made him inhale sharply through his teeth. My lips caressed the rest of his neck, both the right side and the left side before they worked their way back to his lips again. 

Resolutely, he pressed his warm body against mine, pinning me against the tiles, and I felt his hard length pressing against me. Seemed like he might be ready for this after all though I was still concerned for him, but a part of me yelled ‘screw it’ and wanted him inside me. My nails clawed at his back to bring him closer to me, my body undulating as much as it could against him. 

His hard member slipped between my thighs and he tore his lips from mine with a sharp intake of breath at the contact. I squeezed my thighs together, capturing him, and he started rocking his hips back and forth, making his length move over my sweetest spot. A gasp that turned into a higher moan leaked from my lips at the friction. My body ached for him to be inside me, but all he did was to grab onto my hips and move more determined between my thighs, against my sweetest spot. His breathing became deep and heavy, and he gasped out for every movement. My head dropped moaning to his shoulder at this very new, but so satisfying feeling of his velvety length as my nails scraped over his shoulder blades. 

His left hand left my hip, trailed up my body, and grabbed a fistful of my hair to yank my head back to look at him. “You dirty girl,” He whispered against my lips. 

“Fuck me,” I begged as I looked longingly at him. The aching between my legs was only intensified by his length rubbing against me. 

He stopped his movements, a lopsided smirk dawned on his lips, and a chuckle formed in his throat. “That’s not gonna happen, baby.” His tone was teasing, but I also traced a hint of disappointment in it. I let out a protesting whimper and one more when he pried my legs apart to remove himself. 

“But I wanna be fucked,” I whined and put on the best pouting I had learned from him. 

His hand in my hair let go and moved to my lips. The fingertips of his left hand traced over the contours of my lips before he wiggled them in front of me with a dirty gleam in his eyes, “Will these do?” 

I had to admit it was better than being left like this, so I surrendered with a nod while biting my lower lip. 

He let one of his fingers swipe through my wetness to my sweetest spot. I gasped deeply at the contact. “Too bad I’m not left-handed.” He razzed softly. His right hand was still resting on my hip.

To give him more space, I spread my legs. “I can help.” I immediately offered breathlessly. 

“Oh, really? How?” He demanded to know. My right hand laid on top of his between my legs, and pushed both his and my middle finger and ring finger into me, releasing a moan from me. 

Jake bit his lower lip as he watched me leading our fingers in and out of me. “You like that, huh?” He asked in a low seducing voice against my lips. 

“Mm, yes I do.” I passionately moaned back as he slowly took over the steering of my fingers. My hips started bucking, following the rhythm his fingers compelled them to. 

His lips found my neck and began kissing, licking, and nipping the skin there, increasing the volume of my moans. Then his lips moved up to my ear, playfully bit and sucked on my earlobe before he whispered, “Put your fingers in my mouth,” and pulled back to look at me. I withdrew my fingers from between my legs, letting his fingers continue, and led them to his mouth where he instantly started sucking on them. He moaned appreciatively as I began moving them back and forth with a devilish smile that got ruined by a high cry as his thumb found my most sensitive spot and started rubbing, almost as a countermove to me moving my fingers in his mouth like he had so often done to me. 

Soon, it was not only my hips following the rhythm his fingers set in me but my whole body. Without thinking about it, I swung my left leg up around his waist. His right hand laid under it for a couple of seconds before moving it back to my hip. Leaning his head back, my finger slid out of his mouth. “I can’t hold your leg,” He panted apologetically. As a continuous stream of lustful cries poured from my lips, I only nodded. Because of his weakened right side, he didn’t have the strength to do it. 

I felt how my chest and face got flushed, how the heat slowly gathered and intensified between my legs where he had upped his tempo, making his breathing strained whereas mine became more uneven and hectic. 

Right as I thought I was about to explode, he withdrew his fingers from inside me. “No, don’t stop!” I whimpered. But quickly he had untangled himself from my body and kneeled before me. Instantly, I spread my legs as I realized what he was about to do. His lips closed around my most sensitive spot and aggressively resumed the work his fingers had done. 

“Oh, God, yes!” I cried. My left leg was about to lie on his shoulder when he stopped it, grabbed the back of my right knee and slung it over his shoulder instead. “Fuck yes!” I desperately cried as his tongue hit the jackpot between my legs, my hands grabbing onto his blonde hair to press him closer. 

It steadily built up in me until it was almost unbearable, my body boiling, my hips bucking more wildly, my hands in his hair tightened their grip until I finally exploded, a deep cry ripping through my throat as I threw my head back. The orgasm rippled through me, making my legs shake, and slowly my cry winded down to a deep panting breath as the orgasm ebbed off. Now I only rocked my hips gently, my hands weren’t balled into fists in his hair anymore, my back slumped against the, now wonderful cold, tiles. 

When he was sure he had squeezed every last drop out of my climax, he got to his feet. His lips met mine, and when he withdrew them, I finally opened my eyes with a lazy smile. “Now your turn,” my smile got a dirty edge as I was about to lower myself to my knees in front of him, but he stopped me.

“No, baby. I appreciate it, but I’m tired now.” He murmured with a smile before he gave me a short kiss. 

“But what about you?” I persisted, I felt slightly bad that he had used up all his energy to please me and now he wouldn’t get anything in return. 

He gave me another kiss and a reassuring smile. “It’s okay, we’ll even it out sometime.” His tone was playful when he smirked and winked at me. 

“Jackass,” I smiled before we turned off the water and got out. I only had to help him dry his hair, the rest he could manage with his left hand. 

After the shower, Jake laid down on the bed, it looked like he intended to sleep. It was clear the shower, and the events in there had drained his energy. So before he would fall asleep, I decided to talk to him about the vamps phone. “Should we try and put a trace on this number he talked to?” I asked while holding up the phone.

“Yeah, do that,” He replied sleepily, he had already closed his eyes. 

A quick search on the internet actually provided me with an address here in Vegas. It seemed unlikely, especially if it was another vampire, but we could as well check it out. Most likely, it was a drug dealer. So I decided to wait with giving the police a call from FBI agent Rose Steele. If it was actually a vampire and it was far from Las Vegas, we couldn’t do much anyway as we were stuck here until the abortion was done. 

I quickly got myself away from those thoughts, as it would just ruin my mood. 

 

“Did you get anything?” Jake asked when he woke up a couple of hours later, he already looked much better even though he had just woken up. 

“I didn’t call because I found an address associated with the number here in Las Vegas,” I told him. 

“Really?” He didn’t seem to believe it. It was also too good to be true. And vampires were often more careful than that. 

“Yeah, I was thinking about checking it out tonight.” I let him in on my plans. When he started to look not-so-fond of the idea, I hastened to add, “It’s probably just a drug dealer or something like that.” 

“Can’t it wait until tomorrow? Then we can both go.” He tried suggesting. 

“Why wait? I can just as well do it. And as I said, it’s probably just a drug dealer.” My tone got a little harsher. 

“No, I don’t want you to go out there alone.” He instantly said in a stern voice. When I was about to open my mouth to speak, he cut me off, “Remember what happened last time?” He asked with narrowed eyes. 

Yes, I remembered that perfectly. Actually, that time was worse than what he knew of. He didn’t know that I was at gunpoint. And he didn’t have to either. 

“This is not like last time. The chances of this being a vampire are not sky high.” I defended. 

“I don’t care. You’re not going alone!” He instantly spat back. 

I abstained from rolling my eyes at him. What was the big deal of letting me go alone? “Why is this a problem? I can take care of myself just fine. And if I go, we can find out if there even is anything at that address and if not, we can get the tracking started sooner.” I patiently explained, but I couldn’t keep the impatience and irritation completely out of my voice. 

“You are not going alone.” He pushed out through gritted teeth and crossed his arms. His darkened eyes looked pointedly from me to my stomach and back again. 

“Was I not supposed to see that look?” I sneered. Keeping me at the hotel because I was pregnant was the lamest excuse I had ever heard, especially when I wouldn’t be pregnant for much longer. “I’m going.” I hissed under my breath and got up from the chair. 

“No! I-I call veto!” He yelled behind me. 

I stopped dead in my tracks and slowly turned towards him. With a struggle, he had sat up at the edge of the bed. “You call veto?” I was astounded. This must be some kind of joke.

“Yes, I do.” He stubbornly persisted. 

“We don’t do veto,” I informed him, though I knew he was perfectly aware of that. 

“Oh really? Because I remember you calling veto on the abortion!” He shouted back. 

“Jesus fucking Christ!” I spat aggravated. Here we fucking go again with that abortion! 

Now he had gotten to his feet as well. Scowling at me, like he could scowl me into conceding, but I only returned it just as furiously. 

After several seconds, it was clear he wasn’t going to back down, and I could see in his eyes that he would physically restrain me if I tried to go. 

Finally, I had enough of this, “It’s the same fucking thing every time, every day! You sound like a broken record for crying out loud. Fine, I won’t go alone, but no more veto can be called. Do you get that?” I yelled at him to get my frustration out. Fine, he won this round, but I won’t have him ambushing me again like that and have him think he can get his will with suddenly yelling ‘veto.’ 

He didn’t answer, just continued his endless scowling at me. 

“Do you get tha–” I raised my voice further.

“Yes!” He yelled before I spoke the whole question. 

“Good. Now I’m gonna go get some air. See you later.” I fumed, quickly got my boots on, threw on my jacket, and walked out the door.


	19. His side of things

_“No more veto can be called.”_ I mocked at the closed door she had just stormed out of. “Bitch,” I muttered as I laid back down on the bed. Once again, she had run away. Why was that suddenly her favorite activity? 

You drove her away _again_. Something inside me whispered. 

It hadn’t been my intention to bring up the abortion, it just happened. But she had to take a few days off. She still looked terrible from yesterday. Bruises, cuts, and scratches covered her arms, especially her elbows, her knees, her knuckles, her face, her palm was cut by her own knife, and that bruise on her throat told me he had tried to strangle her. 

I was worried about her, about her wellbeing. Though the thoughts ‘she has to take it easy because of the baby, I have to protect her because of the baby, I have to keep her safe because of the baby’ kept intruding my mind. And I know they shouldn’t be there, they were irrational. And I did try to exterminate them, banish them because soon they wouldn’t be relevant anymore. 

It took some time before I realized those thoughts actually were materializing along with ‘abortion,’ ‘taking it from me’ – both the choice and… the baby… and the worst one, up until now, I hadn’t even though the words in my head, afraid I, or the demons and monsters, would make me say it to her. I would never hurt her like that by saying that. But that one too was materializing…

_Killing our baby…_

Okay, I have to stop now. I have to make this stop. If I knew her, she wouldn’t be back for at least two or three hours. I could go to the gym and take it really easy, but still get my body working. Yeah, I can’t see how else I can escape myself, my thoughts, the new demons lurking at the edges of me, and the black monster that was rising behind me, ready to drown me and take over my mind… 

On one hand, I didn’t want our next appointment at the healthcare center to happen, on the other hand, maybe it was best if it was just over with instead of this gray zone, this no man’s land in between.


	20. Chapter 20

Walking past a diner, I _accidentally_ eyed the menu that told me they served pancakes. I looked down at my stomach, then at the menu again and thought ‘fuck it.’ 

Sitting in a secluded corner of the diner, I got my pancakes. Of course, I poured too much syrup on, but just looking at it made my mouth watering. 

Up until now, I had tried not to think too much about our fight. I hadn’t walked out because I thought we needed to cool it because the argument had been settled, but I just had to get away from him. I couldn’t stand the sight of him for one more second. Seemed like it wasn’t only the abortion we fought about, it was everything. And when we fought about everything else than that, he fucking found a way to get the abortion into the discussion after all. 

But I had to admit I could actually use a few days of rest after that beating I took yesterday. The fact that he might be right pissed me off further and I muttered different expletives quietly to myself while I cut the pancakes and poured the syrup a little more violently than necessary. 

The first bite felt like heaven for my taste buds. God, I craved these stupid pancakes. 

I didn’t know if it was the time apart or the delicious taste of the pancakes that had appeased me, but when I had finished eating, I didn’t feel so pissed anymore. Maybe I had accepted that there, after all, was some logic in what he was saying about taking it easy for a couple of days. 

While I walked down The Strip, I remembered how annoying and exhausting it was when he wouldn’t take it easy after the hospital, though he needed to, and by that, I had decided that he was right and that I, this time, would look through fingers with the whole veto thing. I didn’t want to fight unnecessarily or any more than we already did. 

When I came back, I was ready to swallow my pride but found our room empty. “Jake?” I called anyway, and as I had expected, I received no answer. Where was he?

I looked at the table, the bedside tables, and the bed itself for a note enlightening me of where he had gone, but again, I found nothing. A quick glance through the room told me he might have brought his phone with him, as I couldn’t immediately eye it. Finding my own from my pocket, I dialed his number. 

One ring, two rings, three rings, and finally, he answered his phone, “Yeah?” It was a little harsh. 

I hadn’t even noticed I had held my breath before I relieved exhaled. “Um, where are you?” I asked hesitantly. 

“At the gym. Why?” He asked puzzled. 

“It’s just… I didn’t know where you were. You didn’t leave a note…” I trailed off. I was glad he had answered and that I knew he was safe, but this conversation was getting really awkward. 

“Sorry, I made you worry. It won’t happen again.” He promised. His tone was a mix of reserved and reassuring. 

“Good,” Was all I could say. There was a heavy silence on the line. Neither of us knew what to say next. 

“Um–”

“Okay, so–” we both began but fell silent when we heard the other starting to talk. 

“See you later,” I finally said.

“Yeah, see you,” Jake said, his tone was a lot milder than just a minute ago, and then he hung up. 

I stared at the phone in my hand. What was wrong with us? I realized I had to apologize somehow when he got back.


	21. His side of things

After I had hung up, I stared at my phone for a few seconds before I put it back in my pocket. I looked at the clock to see if I had been here longer than I thought or if she just got back sooner than I expected. Turned out to be the latter. Then I must not have been as bad this time. 

I was about to gather my things when I paused for a second. She had sounded… off… on the phone. Actually, something had been off about that whole call. Though I couldn’t put my finger on it. 

I decided to go a few miles on one of the spinning bikes. Normally, it wasn’t something I did, but it wasn’t as much of a strain as running was. 

The more miles I went on the spinning bike, the more I realized I was procrastinating. Dragging out the time before I had to go back. I had done it unconsciously, but now I tried to find out why. 

Two miles later, I reached the conclusion that the whole ‘veto’ thing might have been too much. I shouldn’t have mentioned the abortion, I should have tried to explain that I thought it was best if she stayed home. But on the other hand, she was so goddamn stubborn and wouldn’t listen to reason when she had decided something. 

When I had finally built up the courage to go back to our room, I had decided that I wouldn’t do that veto shit again like we ‘agreed.’ Though by the time we had agreed that, I only conceded to shut her up. Her face had been all red with rage, and I knew she wouldn’t let it go unless I yielded to her. But now I did agree with her. 

On the way to our room, I considered if I should apologize or not. But when I opened the door and looked at her, the guilt overwhelmed me, and I hurried to the bathroom to avoid her.


	22. Chapter 22

When Jake entered the room, he only looked shortly at me before he darted to the bathroom. I didn’t even get a chance to say ‘hi.’ Baffled, I stared at the closed bathroom door and shook my head before I returned my attention to the TV. 

Half an hour later, Jake came out again with a towel around his waist. His eyes averted mine at all costs on his way to his backpack to find some clean clothes. 

“Jake?” I tried in a low voice. 

“I know, okay?” He instantly said with a sigh, stopped rummaging around in his backpack and closed his eyes. 

“You were right, I need a few days off as well.” I cut straight to the chase to get it over with. Immediately, he looked up at me, his eyebrows lifted slightly in surprise. 

Then he thoughtfully nodded. “I…” He trailed off, quickly found some clean clothes, and stood up. “I was just trying to protect you.” He said quietly. 

“I know.” I got to my feet and quickly closed the distance between us, meeting his lips in a soft kiss. “I know,” I repeated as I stroked his cheek and looked into his hazel eyes. A coy smile spread on his lips before he met my lips again. As we released each other, I laid down on the bed again, and Jake got dressed.


	23. Chapter 23

Jake and I needed some new clothes after running into that vamp the other night. As Jake had been wearing his fine suit that usually was accompanied by the FBI badge, he needed a new one under all circumstances. And I needed a new dress if we had to continue to search more casinos or bars, we had to be sure we had enough money. So after lunch, we went out to find a thrift store because that was the only thing we could afford. 

Last night, the weird tension between us had slowly disappeared, and we had cuddled up to a bad, romantic comedy movie they had shown on TV. 

Hand in hand, we walked down The Strip until I eyed the small side street where I had found the store where I bought the platinum dress. The same lady as last time sat behind the counter and just like last time, she had an IPad in her hand. Today, she had a too tight and too short white glitter dress with long sleeves. Her sky high and sharply pointed stilettoes were blue. Her makeup matched the heels with the same amount of glitter as the dress and the stilettoes. 

Jake quickly located the men’s section, and I disappeared in a multitude of sequin, feathers, tulle, and silk. 

I had only been through one rack when Jake came back holding up a suit almost alike the one that got torn apart. It was the same color, charcoal gray, made of twill fabric, but the cut was slightly different. Around the hanger hung a green tie. 

“You still have your blue tie,” I said as my fingers traced over the fabric. 

“Just thought it was nice.” He said with a shrug. I had to agree with him. The color of the tie was a shade darker than his eyes, making them appear brighter even though he only held it in front of him right now. 

“Any luck finding a dress?” He asked and instantly made a grimace when he saw the flamboyant dress I was holding out from the rack. It looked more like it belonged in the 19th century. 

“How about I help you find one?” He suggested diplomatically with a mischievous smile and hung the suit at the end of the rack before he dug into the rack with dresses I hadn’t looked through yet behind me.

“I’m looking for something simple but stylish,” I told him. 

“Val, I know your taste,” He said resignedly. 

Of course, he did. I just didn’t want him to get any good ideas with feathers or something. 

“What about this?” He asked and held out a plum colored dress with fake fur on all the hems. The only response he got from me was a seriously wrinkled nose. Holding out the dress in front of him, he studied it and by the face he made as he put it back, he had reached the same conclusion as me. 

“What about this one?” Jake held out a strapless dark green silk chiffon dress. 

Well, it couldn’t hurt to try it on.

In the fitting room, I quickly got out of my clothes and slipped on the green dress. Though I had to ask Jake to zip it as the zipper was on the back. “How about I unzip you instead,” He whispered seductively in my ear. 

“You wanna unzip a lot of things lately,” I sent him a glare before I drew the curtain between us so I could assess the dress in the mirror in peace. 

The shiny silk chiffon that was pleated from the upper part of my thighs and up hugged my slender but curvy shape. The pleated chiffon was wrapped in a zigzag pattern around my upper body. Between the breasts was a small triangular piece of black see-through lace that revealed just as much, if not more, of my cleavage than the platinum dress. Over the left breast was a beautiful beaded floral pattern. 

From where the pleated fabric stopped, the rest of the silk chiffon fell gracefully in multiple layers down my legs. This dress’ slit was just as high as the platinum one, but on this, it was placed in the middle instead of on the side. But it didn’t seem vulgar as you couldn’t see the slit when I stood still, only when I walked or one of my legs was bent. 

The way the fabric was wrapped around my upper body, made the bulge on my waistline almost disappear. If I stuck my ass out, it was practically indistinguishable from the layers of the zigzag pattern. 

I pulled the curtain aside and stepped out of the fitting room to get Jakes opinion. When I looked up, his eyes were wide and his mouth was hanging slightly open. 

“What do you think?” I fished with a sly smile when he kept standing like that. 

“You look… astounding,” He got over his lips when he had picked up his jaw. 

“Then I guess we’ll take it,” I tilted my head down and said with a now shy smile. All Jake could do was nod when I turned around and drew the curtain again to change back to my own clothes. 

As I changed, I realized the platinum eyeshadow probably wouldn’t go along with this dress. My beige stilettoes had been ruined in the fight and my black ones might not be high enough to prevent the dress from dragging over the floor. 

I pulled the curtain aside and handed Jake the dress as I started searching for eyeshadow and stilettoes. There were as many weird shoes as there were dresses. I wasn’t as lucky with finding a pair of shoes as last time. Head deep in a big box of loose shoes I found one simple black stiletto with open toe in my size. It was two inches higher than the pair I already had at home. 

Now, I just had to find the other one of this pair. I called on Jake to hand him the left shoe I had found so it wouldn’t disappear while I turned the box inside out until I found the right one. As I looked at it, I saw that there was a deep scratch on the outer side of it, but I was sure I could fix that with some black nail polish. No one was going to inspect my shoes anyway and the multiple layers of long fabric would hopefully conceal it. At least, I could probably get a discount because of the damage to it. 

Faster than finding the shoes, I found a dark green glitter eyeshadow that matched the dress. The too overly dressed woman behind the counter actually gave me a fifty percent discount on the shoes, which was more than I had hoped. 

 

As the afternoon passed, a little too slowly, in my opinion, I was… I don’t know. I felt odd. We had almost fought every day since we got to Las Vegas, but so far this day had been quiet and pleasant. I felt like we were in the eye of the hurricane like we could get into a fight every minute and it made me uneasy. Like we were at the prelude to the storm that could break out any minute if one of us said or did just one wrong thing. Things weren’t settled and I knew we haven’t had our last discussion about the abortion yet. 

I felt the gloomy thoughts absorb me, so I tried to push it away and just enjoy that for now, everything was alright between us. 

The rest of the day we watched lame TV shows, read in our books, listened to music, and in the end, went to bed where we cuddled up to some ridiculous vampire series, I think it was called True Blood or something like that. It was so ironic to watch series and movies that depicted vampires when you knew how it really was. Like kids playing dress up. 

Even though we haven’t fought today, I felt like there was a distance between us. A distance that was paved with everything that hadn’t been said or done in this predicament we were in. Or maybe it was just in my head. But I felt like something was artificial between us, somehow.

In the ridiculous vampire series, there was a short sex scene and I felt like closing that – maybe imaginative – distance between us. Just for a while. I was driving myself crazy by speculating about it and I couldn’t stop myself from constantly focusing on it. So to close the distance and get my thoughts to quiet down, I untangled myself from my blanket and Jake’s arm, pushed his blanket down, and straddled him. 

He looked surprised up at me, but then sighed my name, “Val…” I knew he was about to turn me down, but that would just make the distance I felt between us bigger. And probably make me speculate about it for hours afterward. I needed this. I needed this in some way I couldn’t completely describe. So I put my index finger on his lips. He shut up but he still looked reluctantly at me. 

“I don’t know if I’m re–” He started but I cut him off midsentence by meeting his lips. At first, he met my lips softly but without passion. Then his hands hesitantly laid on my waist, I didn’t know if he was rethinking this or if he was about to push me off him. Before I could find out which it was, I slung my arms around his neck, leaned closer but was careful not to put any weight on his chest, and rubbed against him. He took a sharp intake of breath. 

As our lips parted, I whispered against his lips, “Let me do all the work.” For a few seconds, we just stared at each other, him, hesitant. I, insisting. Then he nodded imperceptibly and our lips crashed together. 

The fact that he had been deprived of an orgasm yesterday might have made him an easy target for me. 

His hands that laid on my waist dug into the fabric of my top and pressed me down against him when I rubbed over him again, he was already beginning to grow hard underneath me. I let out a moan as the friction of him sent a need through me and tickled down my spine. One of my hands found his hair and pulled his head back, so my lips could continue down from the edge of his lips to his chin, then along his jawline and down his neck. First, I kissed every inch of his left side and he let out small moans along with me. When I was about to continue on his right side, he pulled the top over my head with partial help from me as he could only use his left hand. 

His right hand continued to lie on my waist, while his left now stroked my back, my side and played with my breast as I started kissing, nipping, and sucking on his skin from his right collarbone and slowly continued up, saving the best part for last. 

I felt how he tensed up and his breathing became more rapid the closer I got to his ear. As my lips reached behind it and I felt his scars with my lips, he let out a hectic moan and a shudder rippled notably through his body along with his grip tightening on me. He pushed his hips up, rubbing against me and I let out a deep moan. I could feel he was almost completely hard underneath me. 

My teeth captured his earlobe, sucked on it, and I moaned into his ear when his hips shot up again. Then my lips wandered down his neck, reaching his collarbone and softly continued further down his chest. First, I played with his left nipple, let my tongue run over it, captured it gently between my teeth, and let my tongue trace over it again. A string of small moans leaked from his lips. 

I kissed my way over to his right nipple, when my eyes laid on his bruised chest, I closed them and indulged in the feeling of him, his smell, and his gratified moans instead. As my lips reached its destination, his moans increased significantly and another shudder ran through him when I bit it gently, my teeth clinging against his piercing. I looked up at him while caressing him and saw his head was leaned back against the headboard with closed eyes, his mouth open, as the string of moans had only increased. 

I decided that his nipples have gotten enough attention now, and with kisses, I worked my way down his stomach. Reaching the waistband of his boxers, I kissed along it. My teeth bit the waistband, lifted it an inch, and then let it snap back on his skin, making him give a slight jolt, and I continued with kissing along it. 

When I had done it a couple of times, his moans got a hint of frustration and the fingers of his left hand dug into my shoulder. I decided I had teased him enough and pulled down his boxers. Crawling up on him again, I stopped halfway, lining my knees up with his and took his hardness in my mouth. A louder moan escaped his lips as I slowly sucked him in deeper and deeper until I couldn’t handle more in my mouth and then started working up and down. 

“Oh, fuck yes,” He moaned as his left hand grabbed onto my hair. Then his right hand grabbed onto my hair as well and took over the steering of my head at a gentle pace. 

His hips shot up, making him go deeper in, I almost gagged, and when I tried to pull back, his hands in my hair kept me in place. Then his right hand let go, and with his left hand, he pulled my head back by my hair, his length left my mouth. Breathlessly, I looked up at him. 

“Get your panties off.” He said with a dirty smile and let go of my hair, his tone was both stern and soft at the same time. 

I got to my feet and wiggled out of my panties, they were already wet. Then, as a spark of his words and tone, I got an idea. Crawling back onto the bed, I straddled him and let him in on my idea, “Dominate me.” 

His hands had found my waist as soon as I was on top of him, now he returned my gaze with a surprised face. “Excuse me, what?” He said and lifted his eyebrow with a lopsided smile. 

“Dominate me while I’m on top.” I elaborated and wiggled invitingly on top of him. My wetness rubbing against his velvety length. 

His surprised face turned into amusement. With a smirk on his lips that only grew wider, he grabbed my hair with his left hand and dragged my face close to his, our noses almost touching. “So you want to be dominated?” He asked low and almost threatening. As I bit my lower lip and nodded, he continued, though he sounded more entertained now, “We’ll see what we can do about that then,” His tone had morphed into slyness at the end of the sentence, the smirk still predominant on his face but his eyes just gleamed with dirty promises and it made me writhe on top of him. 

By my hair, he turned my head, leaving my ear at his lips and he whispered his first command, “Get on my dick.” It was almost a sneer and I had to swallow the moan his words caused. 

My right hand that had laid on his shoulder moved down and wrapped around his length, he inhaled sharply at the contact, I lifted myself up and slowly sank down on him, letting out a deep-felt moan, which Jake joined in on. 

“Oh, yes,” He moaned and leaned his head back when he was completely inside me. “Get moving, doll face,” He leveled his head and demanded in a stern voice before I had the chance to do anything by myself. A hard smack got planted on my ass by his left hand and I immediately started moving on him at a slow pace after exclaiming a surprised, “oh.” I moved slowly up, a little harder down in a steady tempo. 

“Yes, like that,” He moaned. His hands now laid back on my waist, following my slow rhythm, both my hands laid once again on his shoulders. My nails dug into his skin every time I went down on him. 

After a couple of minutes, I started going faster, but Jake tightened his grip on me. Because he didn’t have so much strength in his right arm he couldn’t stop me completely, but his intention was clear even before he spoke, “No, slow.” He told me sternly with raised eyebrows. 

I returned to the previous slow rhythm and his grip on me loosened again. His disapproving face turned into a smile caused by me obeying him before his lips came apart in a moan. 

Gently, my hand grabbed his chin and leveled his head to look at me when he opened his eyes, my hands ran from his shoulders over his arms, my left felt the stitches on his right arm, to his hands on my waist. Then they continued up my sides and up to grab my breasts. His eyes hungrily followed my hand's journey as they massaged my breasts. My thumbs and index fingers pinched and rolled my nipples and I threw my head back in a louder moan. Then my hands moved up my neck, into my hair and flipped it to my back. The left moved back down to my breast while the right moved to my lips and pushed into my mouth. Jake bit his lower lip and muffled his moans as his watchful gaze laid on me. 

After playing and sucking thoroughly on my index and middle finger, I led them to Jake’s mouth. Instantly he opened up and his lips closed around my fingers as I moved them in and out of his mouth. 

He leaned his head back, but my hand followed him, continuing to push in and out of his mouth. Then his left hand grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand back, my fingers leaving his warm mouth. “I think you’ve had enough fun now, doll face.” He warned me with a firm voice and an accompanying look. “And now it’s time you work a little for it too. Go faster.” He demanded and his left hand smacked my ass. I let out a surprised whine but was satisfied by the fact that I was allowed to go faster on him. My hands found their hold on his shoulders as I increased my pace, simultaneously increasing my moans. It felt good to have his hard length go more firmly into me. 

A fine layer of sweat was beginning to break out on my body by this harder pace. A few strands of my hair started to stick to my temples. I also began feeling the exertion in my legs from working on him but was glad that I had his shoulders as leverage and support. 

“Go get my tie,” Jake demanded in between his moans. 

“What? Why?” I asked breathlessly. 

“I said, go get my tie or I will punish you.” He sneered at me, his dark eyes piercing into mine. I swallowed, stopped working on him, and got to my feet. 

“No, the new green one.” He instructed when I headed for his backpack and then changed course to the bags with our new outfits instead. Pulling the green tie from the bag, I returned to the bed, straddled him, and handed him the tie. 

With narrowed eyes, he pointed downwards between us, I got the hint, grabbed his smooth hardness, and sank down on him with a loud moan. As I opened my eyes again, he held out the tie between his fists where the fabric was wrapped a couple of times around each of his hands, stretching it promising out between them. 

“Hands.” He demanded and I held my hands up without hesitation as the anticipation tickled in me when I realized what the tie was for. “Put your hands together like you’re praying.” He then ordered, though his tone was softer now. 

I did as he said and he wrapped the tie around my wrists three times before he tightened it and tied a solid knot. Then he led one end of the tie around the top of the headboard and gave one hard pull, bringing my wrists directly on top of the headboard, yanking my entire body forward. Now my face was under an inch from his. He sent me a sly smirk before he lifted his right arm but quickly withdrew it as he frowned and let out a small groan. 

“You okay?” I asked concerned. 

“Shut up, doll face.” He smiled deridingly. Okay, then I guess he was fine. 

Now, he took the end of the tie that was around the headboard into his mouth, and with his left hand, he put the other end around the headboard as well, wrapping the end around the one going to his mouth and then tightened to make a knot. He did it one more time – a double knot and checked it to see if it would hold. At last, he looked satisfied back at me and grabbed my chin with his left hand. “Now there’s nowhere to run, doll face.” He smirked demeaning, his thumb traced over my lower lip. The next second, his face hardened. “What are you waiting for? Get going!” He snapped and gave me a slap on my ass, causing a whimper, partially from pain and from surprise, to escape my lips before I started moving on him. 

This new angle put more strain on my, already weary, legs. Especially my thighs were beginning to feel the strain the longer I went on, so this time, I started with the slow pace like I did in the beginning and hoped he would allow it for just a bit. 

“Faster,” Jake demanded and gave me another smack on my ass that made a rush run through me as another surprised whine left me and I went faster up and down on him. My breath was getting more labored and panting. I could still feel his latest smack and to think it wasn’t his dominant hand that had smacked me. 

My moans turned more frantic until they were pleasurable and exerted cries. Two times Jake had grabbed on to my hair and forced my lips to his in a bruising kiss, forcing his tongue into my mouth, only to suddenly rip my head back to break the kiss, which left me even more breathless. 

The sweat was now starting to run down my temples and my back, and my damp hair stuck to my body. Without noticing it, I had slowed my tempo on him because my legs were permeated. Unfortunately for me, Jake noticed it. “Keep going!” He sneered and his hand landed another smack on my ass that made a rush run through me as I exclaimed my pain and gratification. Even after his hand left my ass, I could feel it tingle. 

My head fell to his right shoulder. My body was beginning to be really exhausted, my legs were permeated and they felt weak for every time I had to lift my weight. It was easier to ride him if he was lying flat on his back. Then I could seek support on him, lean close to him and I would only have to move my weight horizontally, like this, I had to move it vertically. And what was worse was, that my hands were tied, so I couldn’t use them to help lift my weight or seek support on his shoulders. 

His hand stroked my back as he turned his head and placed a couple of gentle kisses on my neck. “Are you tired, sweetheart?” He asked sweetly. Too sweetly in my opinion. The fact that he didn’t call me doll face also tipped me off. 

“Yes,” I said breathlessly in between my moans and rapid breath while wiping my sweaty forehead against his shoulder. 

“Don’t break the rhythm!” He hissed loudly and smacked my ass harder than the previous times. I threw my head back and cried out. The pain and pleasure shot through me and made me shiver blissfully as my head dropped to his shoulder again. I hadn’t even noticed I had decreased my pace on him until he pointed it out. My legs were just so tired. 

“Do you want a break, doll face?” He asked in the same sweet tone, but now it had a hard edge to it. 

“Yes, please.” I breathed and swallowed thickly. My mouth felt dry. 

His hand grabbed my hair and ripped my head back to make me look up at him, I stopped moving on him. “Then it’s gonna cost.” He said condescendingly with a devilish smirk. 

Oh, so that was the game we were playing. I was almost starting to regret that I had asked him to dominate me while being on top. 

As he remained silent, he raised his eyebrows and asked wonderingly, “Aren’t you curious to know exactly what it’s gonna cost?” 

“Yes, I am.” I nodded. I had counted on him just telling me instead of having to ask. 

His tongue ran playfully over his lower lip, followed by his teeth digging into it and slowly releasing it again. “An orgasm.” He finally let out in a mischievous tone. 

Oh, fuck… I sighed and weighted my options. Our few exchanges of sentences had already bought me a couple of moments break. “No, I’d rather go on.” I straightened my shoulders and told him firmly. 

He chuckled arrogantly while shaking his head lightly. “Doll face,” He started in a patronizing tone. “Technically you’ve already gotten a break.” As he looked into my eyes, his smile slowly faded while he waited for his words to sink in. 

“That’s not fair…” I instantly blurted out before I could stop myself. Jake’s hand moved from my hair over my cheek to my jaw, only leaving my skin to get around my arm that was still tied to the headboard. His touch was light and gentle. Then he harshly grabbed my jaw and pulled me closer. 

“Remember yesterday when I said we’ll even it out sometime? Well, this is _sometime_ , baby.” The devilish smirk was back on his lips as he sneered the last sentence at me. 

“Please…” I whispered and looked back at him with puppy eyes and slightly pouting while tilting my head down as much as his grip on me allowed.

“Do you really think that looking at me with puppy eyes is gonna make me change my mind or go easier on you? Hmm?” He asked in that same dangerously sweet tone while his hand moved to my cheek where his thumb stroked me. “Sweetheart, answer me or I’ll have to slap you.” He said in that same sweet, calm tone.

“Maybe,” I hesitantly whispered while I bit my lip. I had no idea what would be the correct answer in this situation. I looked hopefully back at him. 

He sighed and then smiled condescendingly. “So you thought you could manipulate me?”

“No…” I hastily stammered.

“Oh, but I think you did.” He shook his head deridingly and clicked his tongue disapprovingly. This was a whole new side of him I had uncovered in the past few days. “And for that, I have to punish you, sweetheart.” He said it like he wanted to have another choice but that I didn’t give him one while he still gently stroked my cheek. “You understand that, right?” Now, he tilted his head and looked up at me like I was a child. I bit my lip again and writhed on top of him, as I didn’t know exactly what to answer. This both sounded promising and frustrating to me. 

“Right!?” He suddenly yelled and I jolted on top of him as his grip on my cheek tightened.

“Yes,” I said immediately and my eyes dropped from his. Oh, what was he gonna do to me? The anticipating tickle spread in my stomach. 

“Look at me. I wanna see your face when I punish you.” He firmly instructed. I raised my gaze and met his dark eyes. “How many slaps do you think you’ve deserved?” He pondered amused as he scrutinized my face. 

First, he tilted his head to the left, then to the right and pouted his lips like he was trying very hard to decide. His eyes then followed my arms up to the headboard where my wrists were tied and looked at them with narrowed eyes. “I think I’ll release your hands first,” He said slowly like he was still making up his mind, “but only because your arm is in my way.” His eyes found mine as he said the last thing in a firm voice. He wasn’t showing me any mercy, it was only for his own convenience. 

His left hand reached up and untied the knot. It took a couple of moments because I had pulled several times on the tie and tightening the knot further. When the knot binding me to the bed was released, he pulled my hands down in front of me, so he could use both hands to untie the knot keeping my wrists together. The blood rushed to my hands when he had lowered them and it flowed more profound when he released the knot and removed the tie. The fabric had left red marks on my skin. I bend and stretched my fingers a couple of times to make the numb feeling disappear. 

“I think you’ve deserved five,” He then said soberly and looked up at me. When I looked puzzled back at him, he elaborated, “Five slaps. Now, where do you want them? Cheek?” His left hand traced lightly over my cheek, “Or ass?” His hand fell down to my ass and gave it a pinch that made me inhale sharply. 

A smile pulled the corner of my mouth upwards as I considered my options. Or really, I was thinking, where would the rush be best? I had already gotten several smacks on my ass and there was still a light tingly feeling but getting slapped… oh, it brought a good rush too. But for the sake of exploring new things, I ended up saying, “Ass.” And I couldn’t hold a dirty smile off my face. 

“As you wish.” He purred with a lecherously, smug smile. His left hand gently circled my butt cheek, it made the tingly feeling come forward under my skin, and I bit my lip to hold back a moan. My hands had found his shoulder and in anticipation, my nails dug into his skin. Then his hand left my body and less than a second later, his open palm impacted with my ass and I cried out as the pain and rush ran through me. 

Again, he gently caressed my butt cheek in circles, only enhancing the, now more prominent, tingling. But the longer he stroked me, the tenser I got, as I knew what awaited. His second smack felt harder than the previous one and I cried out, digging my nails deeper into his shoulders. 

As the other times, he stroked me, then smacked me when I least expected it. At the fourth smack, Jake moaned with me as I felt everything cringe together inside of me, around him. Throwing my head back, my cry morphed into a soft moan and I rocked my hips back and forth on top of him. And he didn’t stop me. 

As he caressed my skin again, my body was boiling, the tingling had spread throughout me. It was addicting. 

The last smack landed on my, already heated, skin. This one was harder than all the previous ones and he let out a grunt as he smacked me, then a deep-felt moan as he also felt how everything cringed together inside of me. Again, I threw my head back and rocked my hips more violently on top of him. “Again,” I begged, it sounded almost desperate, but I wanted more of this tingly rush that had spread throughout my body that was comparable but also different from the slapping. 

“Are you starting to like your punishment?” Jake teased. His hand stroked my cheek as I pointlessly tried to catch my breath. 

“Yes.” I moaned and met his gaze, his whole face shone with dirty amusement. His hand moved to the back of my neck where he grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head in front of his. The smell of him, his hard handling of me, and the, oh so dirty, gleam in his eyes made me moan.

“You’re a little freak, aren’t ya?” He half chuckled, half sneered back at me. His hungry eyes devoured me completely. 

I nodded as much as his grip on my hair allowed and was then finally able to breathe out a, “Yes.” Instantly biting my lower lip afterward. 

“But you’re my freak.” He sneered possessively before his lips brutally attacked mine and I gasped into the kiss, which gave his tongue access. A moment later, he tore his lips from mine, sneered, “Get moving.” At the same time, his right hand pinched my butt cheek, causing me to gasp out. My gasp died in his mouth as he sealed his lips to mine just as violently as before. 

I started moving up and down on him, it felt heavenly after sitting still on him for so long, though my thighs felt weak. He rapaciously steered the kiss and I could barely follow him, but his lips and tongue didn’t give me any choice. His hand gradually let go of my hair and slowly dragged down my body. A fire rose in me as it changed direction when it reached my hip. It was heading down between my legs. 

As his fingers reached their destination, I tore my lips from his and threw my head back in a loud cry. A moment later, I leveled my head and attacked his lips, but in a matter of seconds, he regained the steering of our kiss. 

His skilled fingers made me want to go faster on him, and when I did, he didn’t stop me. The parts of my hair that didn’t stick to my forehead, neck, and back, bounced around me when I rode his length harder. We both moaned frantically in between our wild kisses. 

Slowly, it built up in me, spreading like a fire in my veins, and overshadowing the tiredness in my legs. But then his fingers stopped. Surprised, I tore my lips from his to look down at him and I stopped moving on him. 

“The break cost you an orgasm,” He smirked deviously. When I looked disappointed back at him as my sweet released drifted out of reach, he continued, “From me, that is.” He pointed out with a raised eyebrow. “I didn’t say anything about you.” His tone was slightly cryptic. 

As I looked a bit puzzled back at him, he finally revealed what his point was, “Make yourself come.” A dirty smirk dawned on his lips. “Now, doll face!” He snapped and his left hand connected with my ass in a loud smack. I yelped as my right hand continued where his skilled fingers left off and my lips parted in a loud moan. When I opened my eyes, they fell on his shoulder where my hand had just been. I had left several red nail marks on him. Then I unhurriedly began moving up and down on him. My pace on him matched my fingers pace on myself as it slowly increased. 

My breathing first became heavier, then more rapid as I accelerated on him. His hand grabbed my hair once again and forced my lips to his, my moans made it too easy for his tongue to gain access. For every second, my moans turned into more lustful cries and he swallowed every one of them, refusing to let our lips part. 

My legs trembled both because my sweet release was now closing in rapidly, but also because my legs were more permeated and tired than ever. Jake felt it too, and with a hard bite in my lower lip that made me cry out, he broke off the kiss. His hand in my hair moved down and closed around my throat, cutting off both the blood flow and my airways, making a gasp die in my throat. 

Our gazes locked at one another. Throaty grunts were emitting through his clenched teeth as I bounced up and down on him, his eyes watching me so greedily. My mouth was open in silent cries, my nails digging deeper into his shoulder as my other hand worked more briskly between my legs. 

My lungs burned at the lack of oxygen before my sight got affected and I had to tap on his arm for release. I heaved in a deep breath and cried out as the rush burned through me. Quickly, I grabbed his wrist and led his hand to my throat only seconds after he had released it. I was so close, but the fast bouncing rhythm and having his big hardness going in and out of me made it last a little longer to reach my sweet release. 

When my lungs burned for air, I didn’t tap out yet. It hurt and I uselessly gasped, but I knew the rush would be so much better if I just held out a little longer. I began to feel dizzy and first then, I tapped on his arm and he let me go. 

I dragged a deep desperate breath down my lungs and as I breathed out it was a distorted cry as my head fell to Jake’s shoulder. My legs clasped together and I felt everything convulse inside of me, starting at my core and rippled out through my body, sending the orgasm thundering through me. Jake grunted and his hips shot up and made me bounce. I had stopped moving on him and was now rocking my hips to get every last drop out of my orgasm, his length inside me perfectly accompanied my fingers. The nails of my left hand scraped his shoulder down over his biceps. A yelp interrupted his moans and grunts when my nails got a little too close to the stitches on his right arm. I tried to say ‘sorry,’ but my gratified moans and cry wouldn’t let me. 

Finally, the last waves rippled through me and left me exhausted and shivering on top of Jake. My whole body slumped against his, though I still made sure not to put too much weight on his chest. I sighed out deeply and felt a couple of drops of sweat run down my temples and on my back. Jakes left arm was wrapped around my back, his right hand laid on my waist and held me close to him. His breathing was deep and heavy, as was mine. 

“Are you tired, sweetheart?” He whispered softly next to my ear. 

“Mm-hmm,” I barely vocalized but nodded to underline it. 

His left hand sneaked under my chin and gently tilted it back to make me look at him. He placed a gentle, short kiss on my lips and then I saw a change in his eyes. His expression became markedly harder, “Too bad. Because you’re gonna suck my dick until I come, doll face.” He enlightened me like I didn’t have any other choice. I almost moaned just because of his words. 

I raised myself from him and his length slipped out of me. Then I, on still trembling legs, crawled backward, our eyes were still locked on each other. And the closer I got, the more his eyes widened and his mouth fell open. My right hand wrapped around him and a silent gasp came from his lips. Slowly, I neared him, teasingly I licked the tip of him, and he jolted slightly, followed by a sharp intake of breath. A smile spread on my lips before I took him in my mouth, a loud moan spilled from Jake’s lips, and his left hand instantly grabbed on to my hair. My lips and tongue worked greedily over him, as I tasted myself on his velvety length, my hand worked in cooperation on what I couldn’t handle in my mouth. 

My legs were glad to get a rest, though they still trembling vaguely underneath me. I moaned as I worked on him, but they got outshouted by Jakes loud moans that quickly turned into grunts as both his hands clasped onto my hair and took over the steering of my head. His hips shot up too, pushing him deeper in and tears came to my eyes as I gagged repeatedly when he continued his hard pace. 

For a few seconds, he pulled my head back a couple of inches and only had me suck on the tip of him and I breathed heavily in and out my nose before he shoved his length deep into my mouth again. More tears came to my eyes and I gagged again as his length hammered into my mouth, his grunts, both exerted and pleasurable got pushed out in small outbursts through his clenched teeth until he came at the back of my throat. He shoved his length deep into my mouth two more times and I felt the last of his load pulsing into my mouth. 

His satisfied groans morphed into a whimper as I felt his grip on my hair loosened and I swallowed his load. His whole body jolted when I did and a weak moan left his lips. As his grip on my hair disappeared, I sucked him clean to the tip of him left my mouth, releasing my panting breath. 

“You okay?” I asked while I wiped the tears away. 

“Yeah, it just stings.” His left hand laid on his chest as he with a half pained, half contended face leaned his head back against the headboard. 

“But, God, it was good.” I sighed and lounged myself on the bed next to him. 

“Yeah, it was.” He snickered and shot me a dirty glance at the corner of his eyes. 

“It was also kind of a roleplay.” I absentmindedly pointed out. It was first now I realized it, thought it was so different from the others we had done, and then again, it wasn’t. 

“Yeah, you’re right. A Dom-sub roleplay.” Jake noted. 

“Yeah, I guess it was.” I agreed. Up until now, I hadn’t known what to call it. But now that he mentioned it, it was obviously clear to me. 

Jake scooted down until his head hit the pillow and he was lying like me, then he turned to face me and leaned closer until our lips met in a soft kiss. “Mmm, you taste good.” He snickered, it made me smile, and he kissed me again. I could feel the sleep dragging in me when I closed my eyes. 

“Let’s go to sleep,” I whispered against his lips when he allowed me to breathe. 

“Mmm,” Jake mumbled against my lips, gave me a last, long kiss before he released me and we crawled under the covers. Before I was completely under, I turned off the TV. 

My skin was still damp and the ‘exercise’ my legs had gotten today could still be felt. I was sure I would be able to feel it tomorrow. But what was most important was, that I didn’t felt like there was this weird distance between us anymore. 

“How’s your chest?” I asked him when we spooned. 

“It’s fine now.” He assured me and kissed my shoulder. He snuggled closer to me, his thighs leaning against my ass, making me aware of the feeling on my skin. I had the same tingly feeling on my ass as I have had on my cheek after Jake slapped me the first time, but now it wasn’t so unfamiliar anymore. A smile dawned on my lips as I realized how much I liked it. 

His right arm laid around me under the covers, holding me close to him. “Goodnight, beautiful.” He whispered into my hair.

“Goodnight,” I whispered back and closed my eyes with a contented sign. 

A second later, his hand that had laid around my ribs, traveled down to my stomach, he spread out his fingers and caressed me. Or more like what was _inside_ of me. 

My eyes flew open and a deep frown appeared on my forehead. “Don’t,” I said, grabbed firmly around his wrist, and dragged it back up around my ribs. 

I heard him sigh. “Why not?” He asked, his voice was markedly harder and there was an underlying challenging tone. 

Now, it was my turn to sigh, this time it was in frustration. I was sure he knew why, though. The fact that he had to ask me that question just seemed like pure defiance to me. Almost like he wanted to get into a fight after my small protest. “Don’t get attached to the thing,” I told him in a resigned voice. It was hard enough as it was, having him questioning and resisting me every step of the way to pursue some fantasy, pissed me off at some level. Forcing me to be the responsible one. A.k.a., _the bad guy_ in his opinion because I was the one saying no to him for once. And the last thing I needed right now was him looking at me with puppy eyes, begging me to make this obscure scenario happen. 

“The _thing_?” He asked harshly. I felt him resting on his elbow and look down at me, but I didn’t return his gaze, just stared straight ahead at the wall in front of me. When I didn’t respond with either words or meeting his eyes, he removed his arm from around me and moved to the other side of the bed with a demonstrating scoff. 

Fine. If he wanted to be pissed at me, then be pissed at me. I didn’t care. Or of course, I did. I hated when he was angry with me, but I would claim my right. It was my body that had a hostile takeover, not his. I would call it whatever I wanted. And as it was in my body, I also had a say over the ‘petting zoo time.’

Internally, I sighed. We had just gotten past that distance and now it was full on again, if not even worse now. Why did we only have so short breaks from it? 

I decided to let it go. I wasn’t going to burden myself with it right now. I wanted to sleep. And in less than five days, we would be rid of it anyway. I just had to endure it and get past it and then there would be nothing to discuss anymore. Nothing to fight about anymore. 

As I closed my eyes again, I focused on the darkness behind my eyelids to clear my head of thoughts. To my relief, I soon fell asleep.


	24. His side of things

I put my arm around her under the blanket. “Goodnight, beautiful,” I mumbled against her hair. Its flowery smell filled my nose. 

“Goodnight.” She whispered back with a satisfied sigh. 

My hand around her moved to her stomach and caressed it. The thought ‘our baby is in there’ that popped up in my head, surprised me. It surprised me even more, that I liked it. 

“Don’t.” She said in a stern voice while moving my hand back up under her breasts. 

I sighed, what’s the problem? “Why not?” I asked in the same tone she had just used. 

She let out an annoyed sigh. “Don’t get attached to the thing.” She said passively.

“The _thing_?” I asked astounded as I propped myself up on my elbow to look down at her. How could she talk about it like that? How could she be so cold? The images of the little hazel-eyed redheaded girl involuntarily flickered before my eyes. 

She didn’t meet my eyes. She just stared straight ahead with a face that looked like she had just smelled something rotten. 

After a few seconds, I realized she wasn’t going to answer me, so I withdrew my arm from her, scooted to the opposite side of the bed, and laid down with my back towards her. As I made myself comfortable, I let out a snort to let her know I was far from satisfied with her as it was right now. 

I sighed. How did things get so complicated? 

I swallowed thickly as that question led me to how uncomplicated things were when dad was alive. I couldn’t control it, it just happened. Since dad died, everything had become shit and unbelievably uncomplicated. Or not completely, but right now, it felt like everything that could be wrong, was wrong. 

Val’s breathing was already slower, deeper, indicating that she was already asleep. How could she already be asleep?

I turned to lie on my back, it relieved the last tension in my chest, and I took a deep breath and sighed out. Unwillingly, my eyes darted to her. She was still lying with her back towards me. Since dad died she had both made it better, and sometimes, worse. Like right now. 

When dad was still alive, everything was so easy and uncomplicated. He was easy and uncomplicated to be around. And somehow, he made it easy and uncomplicated to be around Val too. 

Back then, there were still the nightmares now and then, but that was the worst thing, everything was easy. Sleep... oh, I miss sleeping like a baby. I had no trouble sleeping beside from the nightmares that have several months in between them. I woke up, okay, I could always sleep an hour longer, but those were my biggest worries, go after a lead, have a little fun with the badge and flirting with everything that looked interesting. Talk, play games, and such with Val and dad. Kill a vampire, which was often easy as we were three. It was fine now with the two of us, but sometimes, I really missed an extra set of hands, an extra gun, but that was all. Val and I actually did the vampire-killing thing just fine. But everything was so easy... and I was happy... now there was so much shit. Most of it was inside me... Val only added very little to everything that had been going on inside of me since dad died. In the end, I was positive she did more good than bad. Though she was sometimes the reason for some of my problems, but it was so little compared to all the other shit, and I wouldn’t be without her. Though things were really, really difficult as it was right now. 

Actually, now, in this situation, she added more to my problems than the good she did. Right now, she was the problem, or our baby inside of her was the cause of our problems right now. 

Again, I couldn’t forget she had called it ‘the thing.’ It wasn’t a _thing_ , it was our baby. 

Our baby…

I sighed deeply. On some level, she was right. But… 

That little ‘but’ kept roaming in my mind and I couldn’t stop it, much less could I stop the image of the little redheaded, hazel-eyed girl. 

I hadn’t noticed I had clenched my teeth until my jaw started to hurt. Closing my eyes, I tried to focus on relaxing. But the roaming inside me didn’t stop and I fell into a restless sleep.


	25. His side of things

I woke with a gasp and sat up, but it was too quickly, making me bent forward with a weak cough as I struggled to breathe. Both my arms were wrapped tightly around my chest, it hurt and I couldn’t get my lungs to listen, to get them to drag breaths of air down. Instead, I just uselessly gasped. The anxiety that thundered through me didn’t help either. 

With everything in me, I concentrated on my breathing. Pushed the images from the nightmare out of my head and only focused on inhaling, let my lungs expand, feel the oxygen, then exhale deeply, and repeat. 

After a few minutes, my breathing was nearing the more healthy and normal. I wiped the sweat off my forehead. The pain in my chest dived to a bearable level. But as soon I didn’t concentrate on my struggling breathing and had the pain to distract me, the anxiety took over again, making me restless and uneasy and the imagines of the nightmare flew through my head. 

I had been in the hospital, but it had been completely abandoned. The only thing I could hear was Val’s screams. I had to find her and after running around in the endless empty halls, I finally found her in a room that was empty beside her. But she was nearly nine months pregnant and something was wrong. Her fingers had dug into the stretched skin on her stomach and I had seen something move underneath. 

I had only blinked and instead of Val, there had been a pregnant wolf. Just as it started birthing fully-grown, battle-ready wolves, her screams started elsewhere in the hospital. With wolves running in my heels, I had to find her again. This time, I found her in the pediatric wing. I knew because there was happy, colorful pictures hanging in the halls, stickers of different animals on the windows, and there were teddy bears lying around. 

She was still nearly nine months pregnant and still screaming so loud it hurt my ears. This time, the moving inside her stomach was more apparent. I saw shadows, and something was moving violently inside of her until it ripped through her skin and out jumped fully-grown wolves. Tearing her body apart, the blood spilled from the hospital bed and down on the floor in one big puddle. Finally, she had stopped screaming and I knew she was dead. Then the wolves had turned to me and jumped me. 

And that’s when I woke up. 

The restlessness and uneasiness had such a deep hold in me. Most of all, I wanted to get on the floor and work out, but that wasn’t a possibility. I looked at Val. Her back was still turned towards me. Looking at the clock, I saw I had only slept for two hours. 

Should I wake her? 

For a few moments, I argued for and against, but in the end, I shook her shoulder, “Val? Val?” I called gently. She didn’t wake, so I shook her shoulder an ounce harder and raised my voice a bit. “Val?” A desperate note was sneaking into my tone. “Val?” I tried louder and this time she inhaled deeply and turned around.

“What?” She mumbled sleepily and squinted up at me with only one eye open. 

“It’s… I… You…” I started, but I was apparently still too shaken and disturbed by the nightmare to even tell her that I had one. I could even feel the restlessness and uneasiness claw deeper in me just by trying to say it out loud. 

“You had a nightmare?” She asked concerned, but there was a little uncertainty in her voice too. She now rested on her elbows, both her eyes were open, but she still looked sleepy. 

All I could do was nod, and I swallowed thickly. 

She lifted her blanket as an invitation and I scooted closer. Putting her arms around me, she dragged me closer. “Shh, it’s okay.” She hushed as she stroked my hair. Again, I nodded. “You wanna talk about it?” She asked, but had to stifle a yawn in the middle of the sentence. 

No! No, God no!

The words stuck in my throat, so I just shook my head. 

“Shh. It’s okay, baby.” She mumbled and held me tighter. Her hand in my hair continued to stroke me. Though it sounded like she was on the verge of falling asleep again. 

I moved a little, so my ear was pressed against her chest and I could hear her heartbeat. Almost as a habit, I started counting it in my head. 

It took some time and having to shake Val lightly a couple of times to make her stay awake, I finally fell asleep in her arms.


	26. Chapter 26

The first thing that greeted me when I woke was discomfort, and I had a hard time breathing. As I opened my eyes, I saw Jake resting his head on my shoulder, his right arm was wrapped around me like a snare. Pressing on my healing rib and restricting my breathing. By the way, I was sweating, I judged he had laid like that for a while, so the squeezing of me must not have been bad enough to wake me up at first. 

Slowly, I eased myself out of his grip without waking him. In the bathroom, I splashed some water on my face to cool down. But my whole body still felt clammy, so I decided to take a cold shower. 

As I washed my body, I thought back to this night where he had woken me because of a nightmare. He had really seemed shaken about this one. That’s probably why he had clung to me like that most of the night. 

“Morning,” Jake mumbled when I came out of the bathroom. He was already dressed and sitting at the table with a cup of coffee, waiting for the laptop to hiss to life. He had only looked at me shortly and then looked down at his coffee cup like it was utterly interesting. 

“Morning,” I mumbled back and headed for my backpack. 

A few minutes later, I sat opposite him with a cup of coffee in my hand as well. Now there was definitely a distance. I could see that he felt it too. His eyes avoided mine, but they would dart to me when I looked away. His shoulder pose was tenser than normally and he had a small worry line between his eyebrows. 

I hated that it was back, and hated that it was amplified after what happened last night. Only four more days, I reminded myself. I could survive four more days of discomfort. I survived over five weeks when he was Angry Jake, I could get through this too. This was only a grain of sand compared to that. 

“I think we should check that address today,” I said and broke the heavy silence between us. 

Jake shortly lifted his eyes from the screen. “Fine.” He simply said and returned his attention to the laptop. 

“Fine?” I repeated surprised. I didn’t know what I had expected, a little resistance maybe, but not just a ‘fine.’

When he looked at me again, he shrugged slightly sarcastically with an expression that was supposed to say, ‘what?’

I returned his gaze for a couple of seconds before I just shook my head, emptied my coffee cup, and got up to gather my weapons. 

“Val?” Jake said my name low and hesitantly. I was checking the bullets in my gun. Pushing the magazine back in the Smith & Wesson, I turned to look at him. 

He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times while I stood waiting until he finally spoke in a low voice I could barely hear, “Do you really just think of it as a thing?” As soon as he had said it, his eyes dropped from mine to the floor. 

I let out a weary sigh. At that, his eyes found mine again. Here we fucking go again. I didn’t know what to answer, but I knew I didn’t want to fight. As I returned his gaze, I saw only curiosity in his eyes and I decided to be honest. “Both yes and no.”

A deep frown furrowed his forehead as his eyes once again dropped from mine. It looked like he thought hard about my answer.

I put my gun, my knife, and the brass knuckles on the table and sat down across from him. 

“What do you mean exactly?” He finally asked in that same low and hesitant tone. It was clear he tried to step very warily in this minefield. Maybe he didn’t want to fight anymore either. 

In my hands, propped up by my elbows, I hid my head. I weighed my words very carefully before I raised my head and spoke, “I’m not a cold-hearted bitch, I know it’s a living thing. But it’s not compatible with our lifestyle, hence why we have to get rid of it.” 

“Is it just something you’re saying because you think you have to?” His voice was even lower this time and at the end of the sentence, his eyes shied away from mine. 

“It’s not something I _have_ to.” I corrected him. America was a free country and I wanted this, I wasn’t forced into it, it was my own decision. 

When I saw a spark provoked by my words, I immediately regretted being honest. I didn’t want to give him false hope. But by that spark in his eyes, it looked like I just had. 

“But you do it because you think that’s what’s best? Not because you want to?” His voice was stronger now. He was clinging onto that little spark of hope I had accidentally given him. 

I closed my eyes to think quickly. But the fact that he constantly thought this would have any different outcome than the one we were heading towards, was starting to seriously piss me off. Then something dawned on me. This would definitely make him realize it. Or I truly hoped it would. 

“Okay fine, Jake, I’ll play along with your little fantasy.” My tone was harder than I had intended, it was almost a sneer. He leaned back against the backrest by my tone. “Let’s say we decide to have this… I’m 10 weeks pregnant. That means I was pregnant when we ran into Sinanima,” I paused to make sure he would realize the severity of this, so we could finally stop having this discussion over and over again! “And do you really think it was healthy for _that_ …” I pointed at my stomach with a more violent gesture than necessary before I continued my tirade. “…to be inside me when I got my ass kicked by her? Got pumped full of morphine, antibiotics, and whatever other crap I got? Got sedated because you were dying before my eyes? Plus the physical and emotional trauma of it all? I got thrown around like I was a fucking doll! I could easily have gotten a punch, or fallen on something, or got thrown into something that hit here…” I circled the area in my lower belly where the thing was. “…without noticing because I had a broken rib and cracks several places in my skull! If it isn’t fucked up already by all that, it’s a fucking miracle!” I yelled half of it to him. I was sick and tired of discussing this and I just wanted to shut him up. In my frustration, I had just ranted on, not paying attention to what I said, but when I told him I was sedated, his eyes had widened markedly. But I hoped my screed was too long for him to take particular notice of it. 

“You… you got sedated? What do you mean?” Now he looked bewildered back at me. 

Oh, crap. Why did he notice? Why did I say that at all? It just slipped out, I didn’t think… I sighed, more annoyed at myself than at him, at the moment. “When they were resuscitating you, I was watching,” I spoke fast and low, hoping he wouldn’t hear it or would drop the subject. He looked stunned. 

Now that I had spoken the words, I could see on his face that the questions were gonna come no matter what, so I could just as well spill it voluntarily, instead of having him probing and dragging it out. “I went crazy, and took down a couple of people, some nurses, and a security guard, I think.” I kept my stare fixated on a coffee stain on the table while I scratched the back of my head. “So they had to sedate me because I wouldn’t come down because I thought you were dead.” I shrugged when I ended my quickly mumbled statement. Now and then, my eyes would, only for a short moment, find his and he just looked more and more horrified the more I spoke. 

“Why didn’t you tell me this?” He finally stammered. 

“Because you were in a coma for four days. And that’s probably not the first thing to start telling when you finally woke.” I felt like I was explaining myself now. And I was so ready to kick my own ass for being so incautious and accidentally mention it. 

“Val… I’m so sorry… I-I didn’t know.” His eyes gleamed of the pain, his voice was both soothing and remorseful as his left hand reached out for mine. 

“Well, you didn’t almost die on purpose.” I spat sarcastically back and crossed my arms to keep them out of his reach. I haven’t thought about that for some time now and I would rather keep it that way. Usually, I could because he didn’t really die, he survived, and that eased a lot of the pain of watching that. 

“No, I didn’t.” His tone was again low, but now it had a hard edge to it. I saw him clench his jaw and swallow thickly. I think he was trying to process what I had just told him. Then it seemed like he shook it off him and continued in a calm tone, “But to get back to the subject, if it really was that messed up already, don’t you think you’d have had a miscarriage instead?” 

Against my will, I had to admit he was on to something. If it had gotten really hurt when Sinanima kicked our asses, I would, in fact, have miscarried. But it could still be affected, couldn’t it? And with the alcohol. There was a reason why you didn’t drink or smoke or anything when you were pregnant. It could still mess it up even if it wasn’t enough to miscarriage. 

“It can still be fucked up. I got a lot of drugs at the hospital.” I defended. 

“But–” He started, but I cut him off by slamming my hands on the table and got up. 

“No! Stop it! It’s not happening, Jake!” I screamed back at him. I had reached my limit of his begging and hoping, and dreamy eyes several times in the past few days and I couldn’t anymore. Why did he keep on hoping? Why couldn’t he face the fucking realities and accept the fucking situation?

“Are you running off again now?” He snapped and got to his feet too. 

I had been heading for my boots but now turned to face him, only to have him flouncing past me. “You know what, Valery? Don’t bother. This time I’m leaving so you can get your precious _air_.” He sneered the last words at me. His tone had a mocking note in it.

“But…” I didn’t know what to say. He had completely taken me by surprise. I did want some air, but the way he sneered back at me puzzled me. _My precious air?_ What exactly did he mean by that? And then have him storming out like that. I remember far too well last time that happened. 

He didn’t seem to notice either what I said or my hesitation as he put on his boots and jacket more aggressively than necessary. 

“You’ll come back, right?” I whispered so low I could barely hear it myself, but he heard it. 

“We’ll see.” He spat at me before slamming the door and I flinched. 

I hid my head in my hands and sighed deeply. We sounded like a broken record. Four days, only four days to go and it would be behind us and this mess would be over with. 

He would come back, I said firmly to myself to believe it before I removed my hands from my face. 

I kept standing in the middle of the room. I had been getting ready to go check that address out we found, but it seemed like it was postponed for a couple of hours now. Unsure what to do with myself, I bit the inside of my cheek as I looked around the now well-known lime green and black (with strange white patterns) room. Then I flung my hands out in an annoyed gesture before I threw myself on the bed and turned on the TV. Flipping through the channels twice, I settled on some cheap soap opera. 

It couldn’t distract me for long and I looked down on my stomach. The bulge wasn’t evident when I laid on my back, but I put my hand on it anyway. “You’re cause of a lot of troubles, little…”

_Would it be_ mister _or_ miss?

Oh God, not you too! Stop it! 

“You little shit.” I hissed and sent my stomach a glare as I stubbornly crossed my arms. 

After a while, where the bad soap opera couldn’t distract me, I pulled my backpack to the side of the bed, so I could reach the front pocket. Out of it, I drew the picture of my mom and me. The only one I had, the one where we were at a birthday party. 

“I wish I could ask your advice,” I whispered to the picture and quickly blinked when I felt it sting in my eyes. It had been years since I had thought of anything like that. But it’s also been years since I had a problem my mom could actually provide the answer to. 

I wondered what she would have said. When I tried to imagine it, I could barely evoke her voice from my memories. She had died so many years ago… She had been gone for over a third of my life. 

I pushed the nostalgia aside, she would have said I was doing the right thing. When I told her about my boyfriend, Chris, in high school she had bought me a pack of condoms and almost slapped me on the head with them when she urged me to use them and be wise. 

She wanted me to have a good education, she didn’t want me to be that dropped out, pregnant girl. Told me there would come a time where I would thank her, and that there would be plenty of time for kids. 

She was wrong. But she would never know that. She didn’t know there were vampires, and in a normal world, she would have been so right about everything. But it didn’t matter if I thanked her for that because I never finished high school or got an education. I didn’t become a veterinarian. There would never be time for kids, or house or any other normal family life, for that matter. 

I kissed my mom’s face on the picture before I put it back in my backpack again. Pointlessly, I tried not to think about Jake, but I couldn’t help it. He had only left like that once before and then he came back drunk. Would he be back in the same condition? I really hoped he wouldn’t, as I would like to check out that address today. And if he was drunk, he shouldn’t be coming along and he wouldn’t let me go alone. 

For what felt like the sixth hundred time today, I sighed. Or maybe I could go now and get it over with. Jake wasn’t here to protest, though he would be batshit pissed when I got back. But it was easier to ask forgiveness than permission. And besides, for every day that goes by, the other possible vamp he called could figure out his or her friend is gone and leave. 

Getting up from the bed, I started searching for the keys. They weren’t on the table or the bedside tables. Not in my pocket either. Dammit. They must be in Jake’s jacket. Why did he even take his jacket with him? It was warm outside. But as I looked closer through the window, I saw there were strong winds ruffling the by-passers hair, their coats billowing around them. The wind tugged some flags and leaves flurried through the air. 

Walking to the address was out of the question as there were close to ten miles to the house from our hotel. Then I had to wait until he got back. Again, I wondered when that would be and in what condition.


	27. His side of things

Slamming the door behind me, I hastened to the elevator. When I had pushed the button three times and it still hadn’t come, I took the stairs. Reaching the end of them, I quickly realized it was a bad idea. In my hurry to get away, I had run down them almost two steps at a time, and now I was paying the price. The more I panted, the more it hurt my chest and I had to sit down at the curb when I got outside. 

When will this stop? I wish I would soon heel and this would be history. I hated that my body limited me like that. 

When I could breathe somewhat normally, I fished my wallet out from my pocket and took out the sonogram. I let my finger run over the dot while holding tightly onto it to prevent the wind from taking it. “You’re a lot of trouble.” I murmured to the picture. Trying hard to leave out the _missy_ that rang in my head along with trying to suppress the image of the little girl I kept seeing before my eyes. It would just be too horrible if that little dot started to be connected with a person. A little tiny person with a gender, face, name, personality… 

I quickly tugged the sonogram back into my wallet and got to my feet before those two things were connected further. 

Getting on my feet, so far so good. Now, what? I didn’t know what to do from here on. What did Val even do when she was out getting her _precious air_? One day, I have to ask her that. When we’ve gotten some distance from all this. 

I know she sometimes took the car key with her. I fumbled around in the pockets of my jacket until my hand closed around it. But where does she go? Does she just drive aimlessly around or? 

She’s goddam complicated. Redheads… 

I still stood with the car key in my hand. Had no idea what do to or where to go. 

_Do you really just think of it as a thing?_

_Both yes and no._

I shook my head as the conversation intruded my thoughts. I’d rather not think about it. 

Drinking crossed my mind, but first of all, it was afternoon. Going to a bar or something so early would just… I don’t know… all I could think of was alcoholic. Second of all, we should probably go check that address today. That wouldn’t happen if I were drunk. I wouldn’t let Val go alone. Just look what happened last time she went alone. 

Okay, so drinking was off the table. But what the fuck do I do? I clearly didn’t think this through when I decided to walk out. I just couldn’t stand looking at her running off again. But I couldn’t go back already. It had only been like fifteen minutes. In the end, I decided to take a walk down The Strip. 

I walked close to a mile where I tried to fruitlessly distract myself by looking at every façade of every building, studied the decoration and tried to imagine what ideas or inspiration the architect have had going through his or her head. I looked at the palm trees and wondered if the structure of the trunk would be difficult to draw and what pencils I might use as well. In the end, I stopped at a dirty bar and reconsidered my choice earlier.


	28. Chapter 28

A sound made me look to the right. The door slowly opened and in came Jake. He looked vigilantly at me and I watched him warily as he stepped inside. Neither of us said anything, we just stared at each other. I tried to determine if he was drunk, but nothing indicated that that was the case. 

“Hi.” I finally said in a flat tone when he closed the door behind him. 

“Hi.” He mumbled back but kept standing in front of the door. After a few moments of hesitantly eyeing each other, I returned my attention to the deprived-of-further-plot-than-ridiculous-drama series on the TV. 

“Um…” Jake started and my gaze returned to him, but then he trailed off, looking back at me with an unsure frown. “Should we get going?” He finally asked with a shrug. 

“Yeah,” I replied in a tone devoid of emotion as I got up from the bed. Deftly, I tucked my gun down in my jeans behind my back, strapped my knife in place on my right thigh, and handed Jake the brass knuckles before I put on my boots and jacket. 

The ride to the house at the eastern outskirts of the city was long, silent, and awkward. The silence just grew like a disease between us, but neither of us felt the need to apologize or talk about what happened earlier. 

When we arrived, the inside of my cheek was sore after biting in it on the whole ride. It was a fairly big, reddish beige two-story house. Its slanting roof was more reddish than the outer walls of the house itself. Outside the house was an old motorcycle parked. It was hard to determine what condition it was in and if it was functional. There were rust and dirt, but a few pieces on it looked newer and shinier than the rest. If I should take a bet, it was functional. 

All the curtains were dark blue and all were drawn which was odd as there weren’t any neighbors or other buildings in half a mile radius. This place was pretty deserted, no one to disturb or lurk, so why were all the curtains drawn? Maybe the vamp, if it even was a vamp, had already left town. But still, why bother drawing the curtains?

Ready with my badge, we walked up to the door where Jake knocked. There wasn’t a sound coming from the inside of the house. Neither was there the second time he knocked, but after the third time, I thought I heard something. A couple of feet scuttling over wooden floorboards. 

“Try the door,” I suggested in a whisper. Jake did as I said, and to both our surprises, the door was unlocked, it didn’t even bind or creak. Slowly and warily with our guns ready, we stepped inside. I could already feel my pulse thundering in my ears. 

Inside, it was Spartan furnished but neat, though I didn’t exactly pay attention to the details. What I noticed most was all the lights. Floor lamps, wall lamps, table lamps, and they were all on. Why draw the curtains in the middle of the day only to turn on every single lamp in the house?

_“I think someone’s here.”_ I mimed to Jake. He nodded back and signaled that he would check the second floor. I gave a nod back to let him know it was okay and he carefully and silently moved towards the stairs that were straight ahead of the front door.

To my right were what I suppose was a living room. Quickly, I found that it was empty. Absentmindedly, I noticed that most of the colors in here was the same reddish beige as the house and the same dark, dusty blue as the curtains. 

I proceeded to my left. It looked like a dining room with a big dining table in the middle made of light wood. It was clear too. At the opposite end of the door I had just entered to the dining room, was another door. It was open and it looked like it contained the kitchen. 

Without making much sound, I sneaked forward. Just as I passed the doorframe, I felt something hard and cold being pressed against my right temple, followed by the unmistakable sound of the safety being turned off. My whole body immediately tensed up, my heart thumping loudly against my ribcage as it fought to push the adrenaline around my body. 

I dared to take a look at the corner of my eye and saw the woman holding the gun to my temple. I couldn’t see her clearly, but I could see a mane of frizzy red hair flowing down to her shoulders.

“Gun, please.” She said quietly as she held out her left hand. Unwillingly, I turned over my gun to her. As I let my hands fall down my side, my right hand wrapped around my knife in its sheath. 

“Don’t or I’ll blow your fucking head off.” She hissed, but her voice was still low like she knew Jake was here somewhere and didn’t want to draw his attention to us. “Take it out slowly, put it on the floor, and give it a kick.” She instructed. 

I did as she said as slowly as I could to avoid provoking her. When I bent down to lay it on the floor, the barrel of the gun at my temple didn’t leave it for a second, actually, it was like the cold steel burned against my skin. As I straightened up, I gave the knife a harder kick than necessary and it bumped against the wall. Please hear it, Jake. I begged in my mind. 

“Now, who’s here with you?” The redhead asked. 

I swallowed thickly before I answered, “Another hunter.” 

“Fuck.” I heard her say under her breath. 

I quickly weighed my options. She was momentarily distracted, probably tried to find a way out of this predicament. What puzzled me was that she hadn’t shot me yet. What was she waiting for? Why was she hesitating?

I took a deep breath before I simultaneously lowered my upper body as my right hand pushed the gun upwards. It went off and the force from the bullet getting dispatched from the barrel made my eardrums vibrate. 

“Jake!” I screamed as I tried to twist the gun out of her hand, quickly realizing she didn’t cast a shadow, but she ripped it out of my grip and retaliated with a hard blow to my face with the gun. Involuntarily, my hands flew to my face, the pain was strongest in my upper lip, and seconds after, I felt the blood pouring down over my lower lip, into my mouth, and down my chin. 

As I recovered, I lashed out at her but hit only air and I got another hit in my face with her gun, making me tumble a few steps to the side, it hit my temple this time, and the pain rang in my skull. 

Her arm wrapped around my throat and straightened me up. I threw myself backward and I heard the wind getting knocked out of her as her back connected with the wall. She didn’t let go and I threw her back against the wall again. This time, she let out a pained groan but only tightened her grip around my throat. 

Before I could attempt to throw her back against the wall a third time, she shoved the barrel of the gun to my temple just as Jake appeared at the corner of my eye. 

She turned us, so she was hiding behind me. 

“Don’t, please.” Jake instantly pleaded and slowly put both his hands, along with the gun, up in defeat. 

What the fuck was he doing?

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t.” She snarled back and gave a yank on me, making me cough at the pressure on my throat. 

“She’s pregnant.” He exclaimed, almost desperately. 

Really? Are you gonna draw that card now? I almost rolled my eyes at him. 

“A little hunter-baby? How cute.” She mocked. 

“If you let her go, we won’t hurt you.” He instantly promised. 

_“Shoot her!”_ I mimed to him. He looked anxiously at me and shook his head imperceptibly. She started to back a few steps. Jake followed slowly after still with his hands up in defeat. 

“Please…” He begged. 

She backed another step, her arm around my throat loosened slightly as she hesitated. “If we ever cross paths again, you will let me go!” She demanded. 

“Of course. Just let her go. Please.” He urged. She backed further, I think we were headed for a patio door. 

“My name is Marie. You will let me go and tell your hunter friends to let me go too. I’m not a threat to you. I promise.” She said. Her tone was less aggressive and had the same kind of urge as Jakes have just had. 

“Yes,” Jake said, defeat eminent in his voice, but also relief. I shook my head violently at him. He couldn’t let her go!

“Repeat what I just said!” Marie demanded, the aggressiveness back in her voice and her arm tightened around my throat again. 

“Your name is Marie. We’ll let you go and tell other hunters to let you go as well because you’re not a threat.” Jake dutifully repeated. 

Her words puzzled me. What did she mean by she wasn’t a threat? She still killed people to get blood. 

Suddenly, I got a hard push in my back that shoved me right into Jake, making us both lose balance for a moment. I writhed out of his arms, threw myself at his gun he had dropped to the floor when he caught me in his arms. Mine was too far away. I got up and ran out the open patio door at the opposite side of the kitchen. 

“Valery!” I heard Jake yell behind me. 

Turning around the corner of the house, I saw Marie had just gotten on the motorcycle. A bullet hit the house wall next to my head when I went out the door right as I rounded the corner. She hadn’t taken the wind into account and her frizzy red hair blew around her face, obscuring her sight as well. By instinct, I ducked by the sound of the gun and the small pieces of house wall fragments raining over me, but I overcame it, straightened up and took aim. Another bullet whistled close to my ear before I had her heart in my sight, took the strong wind into account, and pulled the trigger. 

She withered and fell as dust to the ground along with the bike tipping over. I got a hard tug in the collar of my jacket at my neck, throwing me back up against the outer wall of the house. The wind got knocked out of me when my back connected with the wall, but I regained my breath just as Jake’s hands closed around my upper arms and held me in place. 

“Are you fucking insane!?” He yelled in my face. 

I didn’t answer. I knew he was pissed, but it was better to just let him blow off the steam, let him rant out by himself until he had gotten it all out. Though his sudden outburst took me by surprise, I just returned his gaze as patiently as I could manage. 

“You could’ve gotten yourself killed, you stupid bitch! What the hell were you thinking?” He continued when I didn’t respond. But I wasn’t killed, and that bastard was dead now, thanks to me. He would have let her go, I couldn’t let that happen. They should all die. They were an abomination, they didn’t deserve to live. But I kept my point of view and my snide comments to myself. It would just be fuel to his ongoing rage right now, and I was already tired of listening to him. I didn’t get myself killed, I killed her, end of story. 

“You are reckless! You know that? What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you have a death wish or are you suicidal?” He was still yelling at me and at the last sentence, he shook me against the wall. 

“Are you done now?” I asked as calmly as I could. That last accusation actually offended me. How could he think that about me?

“No! You need a solid kick in the ass for the stupidity you’ve shown today! It’s not just you anymore!” 

I abstained from reminding him about the abortion. He glared at me for at least ten seconds, awaiting a response, but when it didn’t come, he grabbed my sleeve and shoved me in front of him the whole way to the car. 

“My gun and–” I started and tried to get free from his grip. It was still in the house along with my knife. 

“I’ll get your gun. I should ground you until this is over.” He sneered and opened the door on the passenger’s side and first then, he let go of my jacket. 

Ground me? What the fuck? I wasn’t a child. Until this is over? Did he mean until the abortion? He couldn’t. He wouldn’t dare. I narrowed my eyes and reluctantly got in, he slammed the door for me, then walked back into the house. 

I flipped the sun visor down harder than it was necessary to take my injuries into account. At my temple, there was a red mark with a bluish middle where the gun had hit me, worst was my upper lip that had gotten a gash. Putting some spit on my top, I removed the dried blood. It still bled a little but it wasn’t much. When I had removed the dried and smeared blood, I assessed that luckily, I didn’t need stitches. 

A few moments later, Jake came out with my gun and my knife in each of his hands. He ripped the door up on the driver’s side, got in, and slammed it even harder than mine. 

“Asshole.” I snarled at him. 

“Stupid bitch.” He hissed back and shoved first the gun into my hands, then my knife a little gentler to make sure I wasn’t cut. 

The engine roared to life and revved up as he stepped on the speeder, making the wheels spin for several seconds before they caught on to the ground and the car jolted forward. 

God-fucking-dammit. Like this day wasn’t bad enough already. Well, at least I didn’t have to make him turn back to clean up – the wind would take care of that, spreading her dust altogether and if people saw the tilted motorcycle, they would think it was the wind’s work. 

Halfway home, I decided to say something. I couldn’t just let him treat me like that. He was really pissing me off and I wouldn’t put up with it or let him push me over this time. I had to stand my ground. “You can’t ground me,” I said sternly. 

“Watch me.” He half snarled, half scoffed at me. 

“You cannot ground me. I will not allow it!” I hit his arm for every syllable of the last sentence. 

Suddenly, he harshly turned the wheel, making the car drive into the dirt of the road and then he hit the brakes so hard my seatbelt tightened around me. When the car stood still, he turned in his seat to face me and sneered in the cruelest tone I had heard, “I will keep you in that fucking room if you deliberately try to get yourself killed again.” His voice was low but so threatening. He was 100 % serious about this. And all I could do was staring aghast at him. 

“Do you hear me?” His tone was on the verge of yelling again and it made me wince. It had been a long time since I had seen him this mad. 

Don’t get afraid of him, something inside me told me or maybe I just really wanted to convince myself of that. I took a deep breath and shook it off me as much as I could. “I did not try to get myself killed!” I sneered as strongly as I could muster. 

“Then what the fuck was that back there?” He retorted. 

“That was getting the job done when you didn’t have the guts to do it because you wanted to make a deal with her just because you got raging baby fever!” I nearly screamed the last part back at him. 

“I saved your life!” He pronounced every word clearly like he didn’t think I would understand his words otherwise. 

“And I made sure to save god knows how many she would have killed if we had let her go!” I yelled back at him. For several seconds we just glowered at each other. 

“Are we gonna get back to the fucking hotel today?” I finally asked. 

“Are you gonna stop fucking hitting me while I drive?” He sneered back. 

“Fine!” I burst out with an annoyed gesture before I crossed my arms and looked out the window. Finally, he pulled out of the dirt of the road and we drove back to the hotel. For the rest of the ride, I refused to look at him, let alone talk to him. 

As we got back, I headed directly for the bathroom, leaving a trail of clothes from the door, and took a hot shower. It stung in my lip at first, so I leaned my head back to prevent the hot water from running down over my face. 

The hot water unknotted the tension in my neck and shoulders, and with a sigh, I tried to empty my head completely of thoughts. It didn’t last long, though. I couldn’t let him treat me the way he had today. And simply by that, I decided to sleep on the floor in protest. 

When I returned from the bathroom, Jake was already in the bed with the TV on and it looked like he did everything in his power to look at the TV and not me when I entered the room. 

After putting on a clean pair of panties and a top, I grabbed my pillow and blanket and threw them to the floor. 

“Are you seriously gonna sleep on the floor?” He asked sarcastically before I had barely laid down. 

“Yes,” I answered shortly as I laid down on the black carpet with my back towards the bed. It was hard to lay on and it stung and scratched me. But I could survive for one night. 

After a minute or two in silence, he sighed. “Val, come back to bed.” His tone was still harsh, but it had a hint of pleading to it. 

“No.” I stubbornly persisted. 

“Fine. I’ll sleep on the floor, you take the bed.” He said in a resigned tone. I heard the squeaking from the bed when he sat up, and the low thud when his pillow landed on the floor.

“Why? What’s wrong with me sleeping on the floor?” I demanded to know. What was it to him if I decided to sleep on the floor? Why was he making such a big deal out of it?

“Because you’re–”

“Because I’m pregnant?” I interrupted in a mocking tone.

“Yes!” He yelled back, and I heard another squeak and a louder thud. I think he hit the bed in frustration, though I couldn’t see it. 

When I didn’t show any sign of getting up, he ordered, “Get your ass off the floor and onto the bed!”

“No!” 

“Now! Or I’m gonna drag you up here!” 

“Goddammit!” I hissed. I knew he meant it literally. I threw the pillow up on the bed. By the thud it made, I think I unintentionally hit Jake on the back with it. I gathered my blanket and stood up. He was sitting on the edge of the bed with his back turned towards me, but his head was turned so he could look at me from the corner of his eye. Or should I say glare? Probably to check if I did what he said. He had turned the TV off, so the only light came from the light on the wall above the bed. 

“Get your ass off the bed,” I said with forced calmness. If he could order me around, I could do the same. I wasn’t gonna lie down before he was off it. 

He shot me a burning glance as he demonstrating threw his blanket on the floor, gave me a scoff before he laid down, and I crawled onto the bed. This was definitely better than the floor. I made myself comfortable, turned off the lights, and closed my eyes. 

But as the minutes passed, I started to feel guilty. And it just grew and grew in my chest. Though we were mad at each other, he willingly, insisted actually, on switching places with me, so I could get a good night’s sleep. Would he have done it even if I wasn’t pregnant? I thought about it for a couple of minutes while chewing on the inside of my cheek. I actually think he would. He would make up some other excuse, like ‘just see how bad you sleep in the car, how do you think you’ll feel after a whole night on the floor?’ I could almost hear him say it in my head. This excuse about me being pregnant was just the one he chose because it was the most obvious one. 

The guilt weighed heavier on my chest until I couldn’t stand that I had driven him out of bed like that just because he cared about my wellbeing. “Jake?” I tried in a whisper. He didn’t answer. But it had only been fifteen minutes or so, so I was pretty sure he wasn’t asleep yet. He was ignoring me. “Are you asleep?” I whispered slightly louder. 

“What do you think?” He spat. His loud words made me jump. Though he wasn’t yelling, it just felt too loud after my whispering words. 

Biting my lip, I swallowed my pride while also preventing the guilt from choking me. “I’m sorry,” I said earnestly. I heard a light scoff as a reply. 

With a sigh, I continued in the same tone, “I’m sorry I kicked you out of the bed.” 

Another scoff. But after a few seconds, I heard a lighter, more resigned scoff. “Technically, I kicked myself out.” He spat sarcastically. 

“Stop being a jackass.” I burst out in annoyance. I was apologizing, trying to make amends, and he just couldn’t accept it, or wouldn’t. 

“Stop being a bitch.” He retorted instantly. That comment surely didn’t help on the guilt. 

“Fine. I’m sorry I’m such a bitch. Now stop being a jackass, accept my apology, and get back in bed so you can sleep properly.” 

He sat up and glared at me over the edge of the bed. “Fine.” He said like it settled it all. Threw his pillow up on the bed before he got up and threw himself on the bed with his back towards me.   
I felt a little better now that I knew his sleep wouldn’t be compromised because of me. But now I could feel the freezing cold anger radiate off his entire body. Slowly and guilt-filled, I turned to lay on my side, with my back towards him as well and tried to fall asleep. I focused on the darkness behind my eyelids. Tried to let it consume me and drag me into sleep. But I was constantly aware of Jake next to me, and how pissed off he was. I felt like over half an hour passed before the tiredness slowly drifted in on me. 

“Val?” Jake’s tone was low but still had an edge to it. 

“Hmm?” I mumbled. I had been close to dozing off, but my eyelids flew open. 

He swallowed loudly before he said, “I’m sorry too.”

I exhaled. I hadn’t even realized I had tensed up and held my breath. “Okay,” I simply said. I didn’t know what else to reply. I heard him turn to lie on his back. 

“You’re so infuriating sometimes.” He confessed. I could clearly hear that it annoyed him. 

“I know,” I agreed with him, “You are too, you know,” I added a second after. 

“At least I’m not a bitch.” He mumbled.

“Lucky you,” I mumbled sarcastically back and rolled my eyes, though I knew he couldn’t see it. 

“Wo-ho.” He sighed flatly. Against my will, a smile pulled up in the corner of my mouth, but I suppressed the giggle. 

“Goodnight,” I said after a few moments of silence. 

“Goodnight,” He replied. His warm hand laid on my shoulder above the blanket and gently stroked my arm down to my elbow.


End file.
